Not in America Anymore
by AliceinBlunderland
Summary: Ingredients: 2 New Girls, 5 cups of Misjudgment, 1 teaspoon of Comic Abuse, 10 cups of Dorkiness, and 7 "Boys". Mix well until humorous. Warning: Do not add more than 1/2 cup Understanding of the Japanese language/culture. Prologue unboring-ed.
1. Prologue

Whoo-Hoo! I got off my lazy butt and redid this what-was-then-extremely-dull Prologue! Newly Refurbished! Hopefully more interesting! Can you guess the movie? … I'm done now.

* * *

プロローグ-Prologue (Re-done)

You know, there are certain times when you think…

_Is this a dream? A seriously, seriously twisted dream?_

And then you pinch yourself in the arm about fifty times before you realize,

_No, there's no way in heck I could've dreamed this. _

And then you ponder the fact that,

_Ow, my arm hurts. _

You know, there's a very famous room at the end of a frequently trafficked hallway in a fairy-tale-like Academy. You know that behind that door, extremely handsome guys are waiting for you, eager to welcome and honor you as a guest. Ruri and I were like every other visitor, opening those doors eagerly. Except, at that point, there was one thing.

_I didn't know. _

Well first of all, who knew that the Room belonged to The Host Club...

_Isn't this supposed to be for, uh, music? _

...Which was another thing unfamiliar to me, and that's already a lot to handle.

_"Maybe it's some sort of gang!"_

I didn't recognize the words subsequently spilling out of their mouth. Of course, it was explained to me just a little later on.

"_Welcome."_

I didn't know why they were dressed up (it was nowhere close to Halloween)... it would be a little longer before I figured that one out.

_"It's cosplay, Miss Alice, it's a very popular activity in Japan and it draws in customers. It is common for each gender to, as you say, 'cross dress' to play a character of their gender counterpart."_

It'd also take me awhile to figure out what the true intentions of the 7 really were.

_"…where rich people with too much time on their hands get entertained by other rich guys that have no lives… or something like that."_

I was clueless of the fact that I'd end up spending a lot of time with these people… in more ways than one.

_"I'd rather not spend my time getting to know stalkers so would you please let us out of this fricken' limo?" _

_..._

_Ruri managed to use the momentum Hikaru gained by running toward her, and flip him on his back. Who knew what two months of Aikido could do for you?_

_..._

_"Can I ask you something?" Silence. "Am I going to end up being eavesdropped by every single one of you guys?"_

I also didn't know how much they'd affect my life.

_Oh come on, I'm not going to give _everything_ away._

It's those times, when you think everything's a dream, that… you really start to question your view on reality. What did you say? Oh yes, exactly like that film by that famous director!

Isn't that funny?

* * *

You know, there are certain times when you think…

**What the hell is this? **

And you can't do anything, because, I mean,

**What the hell are you supposed to do? **

Let me back up a bit, and let you in on a little fact:

**I had a C-average. **

Here's another one:

**I'm pretty smart. **

You're probably thinking:

**What the hell is this? **

You see? I told you. It's just this:

**School and studying are boring things to do. **

And there really wasn't a reason why I should **try. **But, somehow, I was walking down the halls of a ridiculously rich school to what?

**Study. **

Why? Because of two things:

**Nagging, and a deal.**

I'll let you in on the second part a little later. But for now, my dorky best friend, A.K.A Alice, was dragging me down the halls to study. There were like, four study rooms that we could've gone into, but no, she said they weren't right.

Yup,

**I get easily distracted. **

She wanted to try a different room. Which, now that I look back, was pretty stupid because if there's one room that you know will be full of noise and distract-y things, it's a

**Music room.**

But, whatever, she said the door wasn't locked or anything. It would be our last try, because I still had some things to unpack. I even had an explicit list of the items that …"guess who" created?

**Alice. **

Oh yeah. Apparently I "needed it". While she opened the door, I turned to my backpack to grab that list. A sudden, mysterious wind flapped my hair around, and a bunch of sparkles assaulted my entire body. Well, at least the back part. And then I heard multiple voices, reciting singularly,

"Irashaimase." This is where:

**What the hell is this? ** Comes in.

But whatever.

I still had a list to search for.

* * *

I redid this in such a way where the Recap in Chapter 2 would still, kinda be easy to follow. I'm still too lazy to change that... If you saw the earlier version, I hope this one's better!


	2. Apple Juice

Alright, welcome to extra-long chapter! Sorry, but the length is needed in order to explain a couple… ahem, a lot of things. So, enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own Ouran High School Host Club. Ruri and Alice are figments of my imagination, though.

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アップルジュース-Apple Juice

~Two months before the present~

Time: 2:58 PM

Place: Computers and Media Class, Hillcrest High School

"Class, you may now pack up your bags." My classmates created a flurry; it was obvious they had spent the last five minutes itching for those words to be said. I closed my windows and shut off my computer. In Computers and Media we were working on a "My Heritage and Culture" project, but for all that fancy wording, it was just another boring assignment. I turned to Ruri, my best friend.

"You know, I did learn something today." She had her back turned to me, putting the last of her folders in her backpack.

"What?"

"If I ever went to Korea, I'd be so lost. In both the physical and cultural sense." Ruri chuckled quietly. "You know it's true, I barely know the language and I don't even attempt to understand the culture or whatever. Not to mention I fail at having any sense of direction" Ruri laughed and started zipping up her backpack.

"Yeah, but do you wanna know where I want to go? Washington, D.C." She put her backpack on and turned around, we shared a smile.

The eighth grade Washington, D.C. trip last year was really where Ruri and I became close. We didn't room together but we were bus partners. Even then, Ruri being Ruri, she almost always looked out the window, but there were times I could crack her walls of introversion, and we delighted in the moments together. After that, we just became closer.

"Yeah, I wish it was a year-long thing." We humored ourselves with a little fantasy of both of us still in the east coast, away from our boring city, discovering new things and experiencing the wonders of traveling. Of course, that was just our minds.

"I wish I could have stayed long enough to see the cherry blossom festival, at least."

"Psh, you can go to Japan for that." I smiled and wondered aloud, "We're such travel-lovers, we should just transfer to a boarding school somewhere."

Before she could answer, the bell rang.

"Finally! I thought that class was going to last forever… Oh! I have to go to the office, see you Ruri!" My mind was all over the place, but if I didn't pay that obligation I owed the school today, I was going to be in deep waters tomorrow.

"See you Alice!"

Time: 3:01 PM

Place: Office, Hillcrest High School

I open the door to see the office lady talking on the phone about something important-sounding, and she acknowledges me by putting her hand up, telling me to wait. I never did like office ladies. Two minutes pass by and all I'm overhearing is a one-sided debate about the best ingredients to put in meatloaf… how important. I think I'm going to do something at least sort-of productive.

So there's this corkboard that the administration uses to religiously tack announcements that no one reads. Being the big rebel I am, I think I'm going to read it.

_BIG COMMUNITY SERVICE OPPORTUNITY_

_ Found: A blue lunch box, please contact the Lost and Found_

_ Sign up for college classes now! Talk to your counselor_

Well, this is interesting. I see now why everyone reads these.

_Be cool! Don't do drugs! _

_ Exchange Student Opportunity to Prestigious Academy, contact your counselor_

_ Visit the library t_

Whoa, wait a second.

_Exchange Student Opportunity to Prestigious Academy, contact your counselor_

If this wasn't some sort of sign, what would be?

Time: 3:05 PM

Place: Ms. Keller's Office, Hillcrest High School

"Hello, how can I help you?" was the greeting I received as I walked through the door, so I explained my interest in the exchange student program. "Oh, I see. Well, looking at your records, I wouldn't be surprised if you were chosen, since this is a scholarship opportunity to one of the greatest schools in Japan…"  
_Japan?_

"… Tell you what, I'll set you up with an interviewer, and I'll email you the specifics tonight."

"Wow, that's fast." I was amazed, could this really work that smoothly? She chuckled at my comment,

"Yes, well, I happen to know that the Japanese like their promptness." I had no idea what that was supposed to mean, but I figured that the comment was more for herself anyways. I said my thanks and hurried out.

~Two days later~

Time: 5:00 PM sharp

Place: Café de Dieux

So I spent the last couple of days bringing the subject up to my parents. My dad thought it would be a good experience for me, as long as it was what I really wanted, which it is, and my mom thought it was a good idea, but her motherly instincts kicked in when "I was too young" and "I didn't have anyone to look after me", and finally when I'd "be leaving my mother all alone". I guess she temporarily forgot the fact she bore another child and had a husband. After a lot of persuasion, her opinion was weakened to a "we'll see". Grr, what ever happened to straight answers?

Anyways, I really couldn't believe I was here, in the Café de Dieux, or The Most Expensive Fricken' Café I Have Ever Heard of. It's one of those restaurants where you don't even want to attempt to pronounce the menu items, the simple "Mac and Cheese" is four hundred bucks, and the only thing a person like me (which takes up about 90% of the world) can really afford to eat are the ice cubes that come with the water. This was where my interviewer decided to talk, and it's kind of intimidating.

I double-checked my clothes, a simple skirt and dress shirt, before heading off to the hostess, who directs me to my interviewer. I probably looked fine on the outside, but I thought I was about to have a heart attack. The hostess brought me to the way back of the café, where some private dining rooms are, and then stopped just outside the door.

I'm thinking you have to have a lot of power if you can reserve a private room in The Most Expensive Fricken' Café I have Ever Heard of with a two days notice… or a lot of money.

I opened the door to find a middle-aged Japanese man with dirty blond-brownish hair in a suit. He immediately stood up as I walked in and started walking toward me.

"Ah, you must be Miss Alice Kim," he started speaking in English with only a slight accent, shaking my hand vigorously, "yes, yes, why don't we sit down. I've seen your school records and transcripts, they are both very impressive" He started pulling up a chair for me.

"Oh, no, you really don't have to do that, but thank you Mr…" I realized I didn't even know this guy's name.

"…Suoh, but call me Yuzuru, or it makes me feel like I'm in a business meeting," which we were, "and it's fine, I must, you are my guest". I hesitantly took my seat, this couldn't be real. Then the waiter came in, asking for drinks. Mr. Yuzuru listed off some fancy wine that had to be expensive. The waiter turned to me next.

I looked at the menu, there was no possible way I could pay for any of this.

"Er, I'll just have a glass of water." Mr. Yuzuru's eyes shot up.

"But why? I'm paying, and it's not that expensive. Go on and choose something else to drink, I insist. I am the president of a large company!" Whoa, okay then. I didn't want to offend Mr. Yuzuru, but I don't even know which of the menu items were supposed to be drinks, and I highly doubted a high-class place like this would have Sprite. After about a minute of debating whether or not to just pick some random drink and hope for the best, I looked at the waiter out of desperation.

"Um, do you have apple juice?" It's my favorite childhood drink, and I hoped that it would bring me comfort to have some sort of familiarity. I was overcome with a quiet joy when the waiter nodded questioningly. It was joy that I never knew could come fruit juice. All this time Mr. Yuzuru had been staring at me, and it was starting to feel, for lack of a better word, creepy.

"That's interesting, most students don't pick such a simple thing as apple juice…" I think he was talking to himself. I was kind of offended, though, I liked apple juice. I smiled anyways.

"I guess that makes me a simple person." He looked at me slightly taken aback, as if drawn out of a trance.

"No, no, not at all. Quite the opposite actually…" Okay, I guess I'm being judged on beverage choice today. Before I could respond, he explained.

"You see, Miss Kim, I like to pride myself in having the ability to some-what accurately judge people's characters based on whether or not they take advantage of my wealth and power. I've seen people order things from the most expensive items to water. Now it's easy to see why I would disapprove of those ordering the most expensive items, but those that have ordered water have also shown to be quite fearful of me or have shown to give up their true desires to appear a certain way. You puzzle me to have chosen apple juice…" I was about to explain that it was just a comfort food (drink) to me before he interrupted, "No, don't explain. I'd like to figure it out myself as you attend Ouran. You do remind me of another scholar student at our Academy…"

I'm pretty sure I looked like an idiot with my mouth open and eyes wide. He decided to accept me because I chose apple juice, no questions on my strengths or weaknesses or why I wanted to transfer. I could tell from his character that he wasn't lying, and I could trust him, but this was too good to be true.

"…But there is a slight problem. Ouran is a primarily Japanese-speaking school. We can, of course, modify your schedule to accommodate for your English classes, but unless you can speak Japanese, you are going to have a very hard time, no matter your extensive wits. We do give the option of a full-time translator, but they pay for a pretty price, and are beyond the boundaries of the scholarship fund… and an average person's budget." So basically unless I discovered a mountain made of gold in the next two months, I wasn't even going to be able to understand my lessons. I knew it was too good to be true… Hold on.

"Um, Mr. Yuzuru, I have a best friend who is proficient in the Japanese language. I know for a fact that she is intelligent, despite her grades, but I think she just lacks the drive. Is it possible to…"

"Ah! I see what you are about to ask me. What is her name?"

"Ruri Kato"

"Yes, very Japanese-sounding," I laughed to myself, "I think that can be arranged, I trust you to have strong friends, Miss Kim, and you are someone this Academy needs," I highly doubted that, "but I must make a deal." Uh oh, didn't he know I don't have that much money?

"You must be in the top five of your class every term," I could do that, it'd just be a lot of studying, "and Miss Kato will have to be in the top ten of your class by the end of the schooling year," that was going to be a bit harder, "I'm afraid that if those terms aren't met, the Academy can't uphold your scholarship." Hmm… Well Ruri is so smart, but she just doesn't try because she doesn't have the incentive to try hard. Maybe if staying in Japan was her incentive she would try harder. I knew it would still be tough; our friendship would be filled with her glaring and me nagging…but I also know this is something we both need. We both needed an adventure from our both mentally and physically sheltered and closed-off lives.

"We can do it."

And that's how Ruri and I ended up in Ouran High School.


	3. Raven

Disclaimer: I don't own Ouran High School Host Club, Ms. Hatori Bisco does. Ruri and Alice are figments of my fig tree of imagination (?), though.

* * *

烏-Raven

_"Hmm… I don't think there's anyone in there, and look, the door's not locked!" Ruri gave a look and let out a huff. She turned to open her backpack and grab her "list of things yet unpacked". Yes, I made that list, and yes, she needs it. While she checked for her list, I opened the door quickly, not expecting anything. Yeah._

_I didn't expect the blinding flash of light that seemed to come out of nowhere._

_Nor did I expect the whole bunch of howling wind and sparkles that seemed to come out of nowhere._

_And never, did I expect seven boys, dressed up in a bunch of weird costumes, posing, and saying something that sounded like, "irashaimase!"_

_So a couple of things sped through my head at that point, 'Who are they?' 'What are they doing?' 'Isn't this supposed to be a music room?' and most of all, 'What in the world are they saying?'_

While I was standing there with one hand on the door and quite probably wearing a ridiculous expression on my face, Ruri was still searching through her backpack.

"Welcome." She stated normally, but her back was still turned against me. That brought me back to earth, and back to my original self.

"What?"

"Uh, that's what it means," she repeated the same word, "'irashaimase' is 'welcome'. Who're you talkin' to anyways? I thought nobody was in there... Ah ha," she had finally found her list, it took her long enough, "found it!" She turned around, holding her list up, "Look at all this stuff I still have to unpack, it's …" As soon as she saw the boys she stopped her speech on the ridiculousness of her list's length.

Ruri gets quiet when, no let me fix that, Ruri is a quiet person. In fact, I think I'm the only person in Japan in which she uses more than monosyllabic words to talk with. She's especially quiet in unexpected, uncomfortable situations or when she meets new people.

So when she saw seven new guys in the most unexpected and uncomfortable way imaginable, she might have lost her vocal chords. Now, this is a problem because she's supposed to be my translator… and the tall blond guy chose this perfect time to spew a bunch of words in Japanese while running towards me as if I was his long-lost lover.

I don't know about you, but when a young man who you don't know basically assaults you, talks to you in a "seductive (creepy)" voice, and brings his hand to your chin to meet his slowly on-coming face, I was taught to do one thing by my father (and a bunch of teenage-girl targeted self-defense workshops), knee him where it hurts.

So that's what I did. The last thing I remember was seeing the blond's face turn to shock, grabbing robot-Ruri, and running the heck out of there. The rest of my senses were blurred together and they didn't work properly until Ruri and I somehow ended up in our room.

Ruri went back to her own senses as well, "What the hell?" We both had our hands on our knees, with respiratory systems about to burst into flames. I stared at her,

"I have no idea," I slowly stood up, starting to recover, "and I don't really want to find out."

* * *

"**First Day! First Day!**" I climbed over to Ruri's bed and proceeded to bounce on it. "Come on Ruri! It's our first day in the fabulous Ouran High School, we don't wanna be late!" Just to clear things up, today was the first day for me and Ruri, but we came a little late into the school year with the "transferring student delay". Who knew that Japanese schools started in April? Everyone except yours truly~

"Alice, shut up and let me go back to sleep." She rolled over and pulled her pillow over her head.

"Hey if you want to go back to Hillcrest, that's fine with me." I bluffed, leaving the bed.

"No, it's not," Ruri's voice was muffled through the sheets, "you wouldn't abandon me, and I'm part of the reason you wanted to come in the first place. Not to mention you wouldn't understand a freakin' word…"

"Okay, okay! Just hurry up, will you?" I took my shower first while Ruri used the sink (she showers at night). I dried off, lotion-ed, and put on my clothes: underwear (duh), one pair of jeans, a white tank top, and a blue v-neck t-shirt over it.

Ouran does have a uniform, but not only is it way too expensive for Ruri's and my budget combined, but there is no way in heck we would be forced to wear a fluffy, yellow dress. We weren't exactly tomboys, but we didn't see how wearing such an expensive, uncomfortable-looking dress could be beneficial to us in any form. So the alternative clothing policy, translated by Ruri, basically says that we have to wear long pants, no shorts or Capris, and tops must be modest and free of logos, no showcasing. Not to mention clean sneakers/ dress shoes and a whole list of forbidden items Ruri and I wouldn't think of wearing anyways.

Ruri ended up in jeans, and probably a t-shirt under a simple white sweater covering her torso.

"Ready?" I asked, tying the last of my shoelaces.

"I guess," Ruri responded, as she grabbed her backpack.

"What do you mean, 'I guess'? Ruri, you have to be more assertive!" Yeah, I'm a big nagger, but that's one of Ruri's fatal flaws.

"Whatever…"

"**Ruri!**" I threw her a glare.

"Okay fine, yes I'm ready!"

"Better!" I smiled. She rolled her eyes.

Our apartment is a block away from the Academy, so it's in easy reach, and it's paid for by the scholarship fund so I can't complain. We arrived at the school about fifteen minutes early, but after ten minutes of me searching around the school for our class using my increasingly prevalent non-existent sense of direction, we were officially "lost" with five minutes before the beginning of class.

"Great! You got us lost!"

"Oh really?" I replied sarcastically. Now that I thought about it, Ruri should have had the map, seeing that it was all in Japanese anyways… Well that was dumb. "It's okay, we'll figure something out."

"Give me that!" Ruri grabbed the map out of my hands, and turned it upside down, so that it was actually right side up… and flipped it on the other side. "Crap" was her only comment.

"Excuse me, but I'm afraid we don't use that sort of language around here," I turned around to see a tall guy with black hair and glasses, he looked kind of familiar, "but I'll let it slide since it appears you are lost." Then it hit me, this guy could speak English, that's probably why he seemed familiar. Maybe it was also because he wearing glasses, Ruri and I both wore glasses… How long had he been there?

"We're fine!" Ruri almost spat back. What was her problem? She almost never spoke in front of strangers, and she never gets this defensive.

"Really? It doesn't appear that way. Are you sure you don't need any assistance?" Raven-haired guy smirked. I think that annoys me.

"Yeah, we're sure. We don't need your help." Ooh, harsh Ruri.

"Well if you insist, though both of you should get back to class. Oh, and I'd like to talk to you at lunch time today, if you don't mind." It took a little bit to register that he was talking to me.

"Oh, me? Uh, okay?" Raven smirked again. The way I saw it though, he did speak English, something I could relate to, and there was something I'm missing about him, and I hoped to figure it out on our "talk". Maybe he could show me around as well, I hated getting lost, but Ruri practically gave me a death stare.

"Come on, we're gonna be late."

"Goodbye, Alice." Raven called behind us, I could _hear_ the smirk in his voice, how is that even possible?

Ruri practically dragged me into a sprint as we ran to class. After a while, she started speaking.

"You, huff, dork, huff," She was talking and inhaling while we were sprinting.

"What, are you, huff, talking about, huff?" I responded, "You, huff, were the mean one, huff."

"Are you, huff, kidding me, huff?" She turned to look at me while we ran, "that guy, huff, was one of the, huff, guys in the, huff, music room!"

We reached Class 1-A just in time and couldn't talk anymore, but my heart stopped for a second (it's been having all sorts of problems lately). After the Blond-Creeper Incident, Ruri and I made an unspoken agreement to not talk about the "event". We didn't want to remind ourselves of the possibly disastrous repercussions of my actions, but I guess Life was going to make us pay anyways… so that's why he had looked so familiar.

Then something else occurred to me, Ruri never mentioned my name to Raven-hair, yet when we were leaving…Shoot.

* * *

Yeah, I know it's going a little slow, but after this it's going to get faster! I hope!

Oh and my updates don't have specific deadlines, they're sporadic. I've just been on a roll these past couple of days, so if I manage to get Writer's Block, it'll take longer to get my updates up.


	4. To Run

I'm sorry, it's another slow chapter, but I'm slowly introducing Ouran more. I also have a warning, this chapter is a little darker than the others, but it's all in humor and satire…hehe. Oh! And I'm also raising the rating just in case, there's a little more cursing from… a specific character.

Shout-out to: xXEmiShaeXx and lil whit, my ever-so-faithful reviewers/readers. Thanks, I didn't even ask!

Disclaimer: I don't own Ouran High School Host Club, Ms. Hatori Bisco does. Ruri and Alice are figments of my imagination, sort of.

* * *

実行する-To Run

_Recap~_

_…The tall blond guy chose this perfect time to spew a bunch of words in Japanese while running towards me as if I was his long-lost lover..._

_I was taught to do one thing by my father (and a bunch of teenage-girl targeted self-defense workshops), knee him where it hurts…_

_"Oh, and I'd like to talk to you at lunch time today, if you don't mind." …_

_"Oh, me? Uh, okay?" …_

_Ruri practically dragged me into a sprint as we ran to class. After a while, she started speaking._

_"You, huff, dork, huff," She was talking and inhaling while we were sprinting…_

_"that guy, huff, was one of the, huff, guys in the, huff, music room!"…_

_Then something else occurred to me, Ruri never mentioned my name to Raven-hair, yet when we were leaving…Shoot._

Not that I could think about much else right now, except that all of my classmates were staring at Ruri and me. Although I didn't blame them, two new girls, both foreign-looking (Ruri is only a quarter Japanese), wearing clothes of strange fashion, and looking like they had just run a marathon, or maybe ten; it was a sight to behold.

The teacher, or _sensei_, looked bewildered as well, but then Ruri started talking, the teacher started nodding, and we found our seats. Ruri started looking increasingly uncomfortable, and I just prayed to God that she would find her voice so that I could figure out what my lessons were about.

-Ruri POV-

Don't these people know it's rude to stare? Jeez, I thought this was supposed to be some rich-kid school; don't they take manners classes or something? Aw shi…

"Alice," I whispered, sensei lets us talk quietly to each other, as long as he thinks I'm translating something.

"Yay! You talk! I thought I was about to go the whole day without you…"

"Yeah, whatever, just listen." Alice changed her mood; she could tell I wasn't kidding around.

"Okay…?"

"Remember the music room?" I didn't pause, I knew she knew, "Three of those guys are sitting behind us, their fricken' everywhere!" Her eyes grew, uh, a lot. See, Alice has these "stages" of facing her problems. The first one's Panic:

"Shoot, what am I gonna do?" She cried out despairingly, as well as a little too loudly. Sensei glanced at her a little worried.

"Ah, gomen'nasai" I threw over to the teacher. He nodded and continued.

"Alice, could you be a little quieter?" I saw her face, and I could see Stage 2 coming along: Calming Down and Thinking of a Crappy Solution.

"Okay, okay, sorry. I guess I'll just ignore them and hopefully they won't recognize me." I glared at her.

"Right, that's totally going to work." I said sarcastically, pulling on my clothes. Stage 3: Realization of Plan's Crappiness.

"Yeah, maybe not," she started moving towards Stage 4, Crazy Theory of Why Problem Happened, "What was up with that anyways? Maybe it's some sort of gang!" I smacked my forehead with my palm and closed my eyes; Alice could really be a dork.

"Alice, what kind of gang would dress up, assemble, and wait in a Music Room to welcome females as 'princesses'?"

"Princesses?" She looked confused. Ah right, she didn't understand a word that crazy guy had said to her. This is such a pain…

"I'll tell you later, the teacher's actually talking about the lesson now." Alice's eyebrows drew together,

"Uh, okay then."

-Alice POV-

So before we came over here, Ruri and I took a class on "Education through Translation", or basically how Ruri and I would both be able to learn without trying to kill each other out of frustration.

When the instructor speaks, Ruri takes notes on what he or she is saying, in English, of course. Most often, her notes are "literal" translations, in which she tries to translate so that it's most similar to what the teacher is actually saying. Sometimes, though, she has to make "figurative" translations, where she takes confusing phrases and twists them so I can understand the main point. So, like, "It's raining cats and dogs!" would be translated to "There's a lot of rain" or "Holy frick it's raining a lot". I copy her notes.

When the instructor does a demonstration, Ruri just tells me what he's doing or what he's saying, depending on the situation.

It generally works all right, if I have questions I can just ask Ruri and she'll tell me. Although sometimes there's some… miscommunication.

~In literature class earlier that day~

Class started and we started discussing old Japanese folktales, I looked over at Ruri's notes: "The wise old fox was wandering near a tree when he looked up and saw a bori."

"Uh, Ruri, what's a bori?"

"What're you talking about?" She looked back at her notes, "Ah, damn…"

"What?" Again, I was confused. Ruri started erasing "bori" and put "bird".

"'Tori' is 'bird', and if you're messed-up brain smashes them together…"

The teacher looked at me with concern when I randomly started chuckling. According to Ruri, I starting laughing while Teacher was describing the bird's/bori's gruesome death.

~Present~

Class 1-A was let out for a short break, which Ruri and I both needed. I kind of felt bad for her; class time now required three times more work and effort from her. At the same time, I hoped that it would help her learn better, the translating and writing. Then I realized I had a couple of problems to deal with. I turned to Ruri, who was shaking her hand to relieve herself of writer's cramp.

"Ruri, what am I gonna do about Raven-guy and the other music-room guys?" The twin redheads and the brown-head. Until this point, I had only managed no contact with them by avoiding them. If I had a feeling one of them was going to talk to me, I would suddenly have an interest in discussing the weather with Ruri in very thorough detail, but I knew that act wasn't going to hold up for much longer.

"Um Alice, this is going to sound bad," I cringed, "but I think you're gonna have to stand that guy up." She was suggesting I conveniently "forget" that I agreed to lunch with him.

"Aw man, I don't want to do that! It's so mean and…"

"Alice, it's either your naive sense of "niceness" that goes or who knows what. Everyone here is either rich, about to inherit a rich business, or is related to a rich person/business. Which means they get whatever the hell they want!" I bit my lip.

"Ruri, you can't just judge people like that…"

"It's not judging! Look, I see how people react towards those the twins and I hear stuff about them. I don't have the time to translate everything that goes on in that class. Their mom's some famous fashion designer, and they're known to easily manipulate people to get what they want. I don't know about the brownie, but there's something weird about him that he's hiding. Don't give me any "judging" crap because I know you can tell too!" Ruri kind of reminded me of fire at that point. I know she sounded like a… female dog, but as observant she is, she hasn't had that much practice dealing with people, and I know this is how she tells me she cares about me. Translation: Don't be an idiot, these people can really hurt you, and I don't want to see you like that.

Plus, I could tell that all of those things are true. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw how the redheads carried themselves, how they saw the world as if… as if it was all one big toy they could manipulate and bend at their will. I also saw their strange, subtle protectiveness over the other guy, as if something could break if anyone, besides them, got too close. And the other guy's eyes…besides their abnormally large size, it seemed like there were some sort of curtains or shields behind the lenses.

I once heard that the eyes were the windows to the soul.

So what part of his soul was he hiding?

Wow… that sounded way too deep, my philosophy class was rubbing off on me. Okay, so perhaps I was over-thinking it.

Ruri looked at my thoughtful eyes, sighed, and said, "So what are you gonna do?" I looked over.

"You're right, about everything, but let's handle one thing at a time. Lunchtime's first. When the teacher excuses us for lunch, tell him that I left it at the apartment, and we have to go back. Then we run the heck out of here, have lunch at home, and run back at the last minute. Hopefully Raven won't be able to see us, or better, he'll forget about me." The plan was probably more over-dramatic and over-cautious than it should've been, but I was experiencing some heavy paranoia. Ruri nodded,

"Kay." I had an epiphany, and realized that she hadn't told me what the Creeper was saying during that nerve-wracking day in the Music Room, but we had to get back to the Class.

Up till lunch, lessons were the same, Ruri hand-cramping, me questioning, us discussing (the weather-ing), except that I was nervous for my life. Like I said, I had out-of-hand paranoia. The clock was killing me slowly and I was on the edge of death when we were finally dismissed. I was about to run out of there screaming, but Ruri tapped my shoulder and I remembered the thing called logic. We waited until everyone exited the room; people were still talking and staring at us. Blech. Anyways, Ruri told the instructor, and we ran, my apprehensiveness working like rockets to boost us out.

We almost made it too. We got as far as exiting the school campus, and halfway through the alleyway short cut that was supposed to lead us home. Except, as we were running out, a black limo decided to park itself perpendicular to the alleyway, successfully blocking our path. We turned around to no avail; it was the same situation on the other end.

This was only supposed to happen in movies! With people who were running away with a million-dollar debt! So yeah, I kind of did expect something to happen, but not this extreme! Crazy people! All I did was attempt self-defense, what the heck did the guy want?

Ruri and I went back-to-back; mentally swearing to fight it out till the end and do whatever it took to protect each other. Keep in mind: we're from a slightly shadier part of America. Raven-hair stepped out, but only to shut the door and lean back against the side of the limo. He pushed up his glasses, an action Ruri and I were familiar with ourselves.

"You should know that when I make appointments, I expect them to happen, no matter what the circumstance, and such a trivial action as running away isn't going to stop me." I heard Ruri mumble just quietly enough so only I could hear,

"I told you so."


	5. Sweet

Again, the tone's a little darker, and I'm hinting some… interesting pasts out of our two favorite girls. I hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own Ouran High School Host Club, Ms. Hatori Bisco does. Ruri and Alice are figments of my imagination, sort of.

* * *

甘い- Sweet

_~Recap~_

_We almost made it too…_

_Except, as we were running out, a black limo decided to park itself perpendicular to the alleyway, successfully blocking our path…_

_Crazy people! All I did was attempt self-defense, what the heck did the guy want…_

_Ruri and I went back-to-back; mentally swearing to fight it out till the end and do whatever it took to protect each other…._

_Raven-hair stepped out, but only to shut the door and lean back against the side of the limo…_

_"You should know that when I make appointments, I expect them to happen, no matter what the circumstance, and such a trivial action as running away isn't going to stop me." I heard Ruri mumble just quietly enough so only I could hear,_

_"I told you so."_

I almost laughed right then and there. Curse my tendency to find humor in the worst situations. I straightened myself out though. This uh, wasn't exactly the best time. Raven-guy looked at us, still nonchalantly leaning against the limo. Somehow his lenses set off this really strong glare, and his pupils disappeared under a slant of light. I wondered how that even worked. It seemed like when I entered Japan, all these things that I never knew could be possible, were possible, how cheesy. He started talking,

"Relax, do you really assume that I would take the time to assault you?" Um yeah, your little blond friend had no problem doing so, "If you would, please enter the car, I believe we made an appointment," Ruri was facing the other way, but then she turned around, and we looked at each other hesitantly, "but at this point, Miss Kim and Miss Kato, I'm afraid you don't have much of a choice." He was right, I mean, what were we going to do? And again with the creepy, "I know your names so I probably know a lot of other things about you and I'm going to use this to intimidate you only slightly now, but will probably freak you out a lot more in the future." Great, just great. Anyways, I looked over at Ruri who was starting to feign defeat, she could be stubborn, but she wasn't stupid.

"C'mon Ruri, let's go." She nodded. Both of us were exuding a mild form of apprehensiveness, but as far as we were concerned, in all the situations that were possible from this scenario, this wasn't all that bad. Still, though, we were prepared if the circumstances… worsened, shown by the tenseness hanging in the air. Ruri and I headed for the limo, and Raven-hair opened the door for us, smirking. I hoped he knew that was not getting him any brownie points. I rolled my eyes, and entered first, Ruri following close behind.

If I ever imagined what the inside of a limo looked like, it was not this. There weren't any "seats" technically. They were more like stretched-out couches on either side of the limo. In the center was a slightly stretched-out business table. The whole interior was luxurious, with carpeting and lights, and a whole "ambient" feel. I saw that Ruri's astonished-yet-still-annoyed expression mirrored mine almost perfectly. Ruri and I weren't sure where to sit, and limo's aren't that tall, so were kind of stuck in this crouched position off to the side when Raven got in. What was his name anyways… though now that I thought about it, I didn't really want to be on a first or last name basis with this guy.

Raven-hair maneuvered his way to the right side of the limo, and then sat down, so that the table was in front of him. He glanced at our temporarily frozen bodies.

"Would you care to join me?" Not really, but oh how I love (hate) thee, sarcastic politeness. Ruri and I awkwardly scooted ourselves towards the table. I looked at my hands.

"Okay, what the hell do you want?" Ruri had been quiet until now. I was kind of relieved Ruri's personality wasn't affected by the grandeur or the sarcastic guy in the glasses. Said guy smiled evilly.

"Ah yes, Miss Ruri Kato. It's very nice to meet you." He extended his hand in a mocking manner.

"Cut the crap. What do you want from us?" Ruri left his hand hanging there, her own hands in her lap.

"I simply wanted to formally meet our new joint transfer students from America…" He started, sickly sweet.

Ruri interrupted, mimicking the same sickly sweet voice, "Well hello there, it's nice to formally meet you. I don't believe I need to explain our names or our background crap since it seems like you already know all that. And I don't really want to know your name. I'd rather not spend my time getting to know stalkers so would you _please_ let us out of this fricken' limo?" I turned, Ruri looked pretty, uh… pissed, but I didn't think this was the best way to deal with things. I saw a flash of irritation go through the Raven-hair guys' eyes, but it went away as quickly as it came. He continued, ignoring Ruri's "request".

"… as well as discuss some, past behavior. Perhaps involving some pain and suffering court cases…" He pointedly looked at me. I was a little freaked out by the threat, but by now I had had enough of people looking at me, so I threw him back the "innocent" look. Eyes wide open, looking back at his black holes of eyes without fear. Something wasn't right, and I was going to put it out there as my last chance of escaping without physical/mental injury.

"Why would someone like you waste the time and effort to chase after a couple of girls with no money, power, status, or anything slightly impressive at all? Seriously? I know you've done your homework. Ruri and I were two nobodies at our old school. What do you and the rest of your weird gang members really want from us?" I blurted all of this out. A part of me didn't want to ask this, didn't want to know the answer, but I knew I had to ask this sooner or later. I was not going to manipulated... not anymore. Again, a slight glimmer of something flittered across Raven's eyes. What was it? Amusement? Surprise? Realization? Remembrance? It was gone within a second, back to that nonchalant smirk I really wanted to slap off at that moment.

"It's simple, really, statistics. Something an honor student should be able to understand. You see, my so-called 'gang' has had a … past of taking in scholarship students and being able to find a profit in them. In fact, you and you're friend here do remind me of a special student…" Amusement wandered in his face. In the back of my mind, I remembered somebody comparing me to some other scholar similarly, but I was furious so I pushed it away.

"Ruri and I are not going be experiments or, or numbers to add to a chart of profit! Does everyone at this school think that people can be used for their own selfish reasons and then be thrown aside? That's terrible! Even though we might not have as much money as you we are going to be treated like people not… numbers!" I spat out bitterly. This was disgusting. I couldn't believe it! Just the thought of being used by a gang for profit… ugh, now that thought was taking a disgusting turn. "I demand," my voice turned to a growl, even unrecognizable to me, "that you release me and my best friend." Out of the corner of my eye I saw Ruri's jaw drop. I never got angry, but in the very few times I managed to I was scary. And never, in my life, had I been blown out like this. Even the stupid Raven seemed a bit fazed; he probably didn't expect this in his "plan". Geez, I didn't even want to know how long he'd been thinking about this, scheming in his stupid evil mind. He stared at me, as though analyzing my thoughts. Couldn't he just look at me like a human being and not an item?

"Very well then. It's against my upbringing to keep you against your will," I rolled my eyes. Apparently it wasn't against his upbringing to threaten girls and make them enter your vehicle, "but I request one thing. After school, I would like to see you visit the rest of my," he coughed lightly, "gang to discuss the issue peacefully, one equal terms. Then, I promise on my family name," Well that's convenient, I didn't know his name, "that you will not be bothered by any of us again. For that I will make sure." I don't know, wasn't he just suggesting he had used girls to make profit? As if reading my mind, he replied, "All of us are of high status and, of course, we wouldn't think of doing anything rash and risk throwing our reputation." Of course, it's all about reputation or money. I didn't think there was much to "discuss", I wasn't going to apologize any time soon, and he never said outright what her really wanted from us, except to use us somehow... Then again, he also mentioned he would leave us alone if we went. And he never said he would leave us alone if we didn't, darn it. Also, maybe it would let me give them a piece of my mind.

"I'll think about it. Just, just let us go would you?" I exasperated. I couldn't read his face.

"Exit left and you will find your apartment. Please consider my proposition. I'm sure you'll find it… worthwhile." He was back to his smirk-y self, and that worried me.

That might have been the creepiest sentence he'd said so far.


	6. Welcome

Hi-lo! I dedicate this chapter to ALL of my loyal readers out there. When I posted on Wednesday, I received 105 views! Hehe, maybe I'm easily pleased, but you all get brownie points! Here's some specific shout-outs:

-My out-of-country viewers! I'm glad you find this story enjoyable even if you can't relate to it all that well. Hello to those in the UK and Canada! And India, Estonia, Singapore, Australia, Ireland, Phillipines, and Chile! It makes me happy!

-My reviewers: xXEmiShaeXx, RoriandOreo, dreamaker401, thank you times a million!

* * *

いらっしゃいませ- Welcome

_~Recap~_

_"If you would, please enter the car, I believe we made an appointment"…_

_"C'mon Ruri, let's go."…_

_"Cut the crap. What do you want from us?"…_

_"I simply wanted to formally meet our new joint transfer students from America…""… as well as discuss some, past behavior. Perhaps involving some pain and suffering court cases…" "My so-called 'gang' has had a … past of taking in scholarship students and being able to find a profit in them."…_

_"Ruri and I are not going be experiments or, or numbers to add to a chart of profit"…_

_After school, I would like to see you visit the rest of my," he coughed lightly, "gang"…_

_"I'll think about it."…_

_"Exit left and you will find your apartment. Please consider my proposition. I'm sure you'll find it… worthwhile." He was back to his smirk-y self, and that worried me…._

_That might have been the creepiest sentence he'd said so far…_

Ruri was smart enough to let me revel in my anger and worry. I wanted to punch someone in the face and drink some apple juice at the same time. Well I did have two hands. I suddenly pictured myself punching Raven with one hand while drinking my favorite beverage in the other. Maybe that wasn't such a good idea. I'd settle for half of the deal.

"I'm hungry. Do we have apple juice at the apartment?" Ruri kind of raised her eyes in confusion, I guess asking for juice after we just got sort-of kidnapped was a non sequitur, but she nodded anyways.

"Thank God."

After finishing lunch in silence (I don't talk while I eat usually, and Ruri and I had a lot to think about anyways), we headed back to Ouran. We did a little bit of walking and I asked the question that we were both holding in,

"Are we going?" Ruri shrugged.

"I dunno." Curse apathy.

"Ruri, I'm serious. These guys aren't going to leave us alone unless we have a supposed mature conversation with them as equals." I said the last part kind of spitefully; something told me that things wouldn't quite pan out that way. She scoffed,

"Right, that's_ totally _gonna happen."

"Look, I just want these guys out of my life. I don't know about you, but I came to Japan for a different kind of… experience, I don't think I want to fear my life every time lunch comes around. Let's go, if things go wrong, we can fend for ourselves." It's true, Ruri was pretty strong, and I was pretty good in strategy. Both of us had good observation skills; weaknesses and strengths were easy to spot and act upon. Though… realistically, we could probably injure a couple of them, but we'd probably lose in the end. One thing we weren't going to was depend on anyone other than ourselves or even worse, lose passively. Fighting was the last resort, though. Ruri and I were natural born conflict-avoiders. Ugh, I loathed that gang of his. It's causing a lot of conflict. "Okay so maybe not, but…"

"Let's just go and get it over with." Ruri responded. She sounded tired. We hadn't had this much drama in our lives for… our whole life. In the course of two days, I had been assaulted-molested, kidnapped, and… oh wait.

"Hmm, what was the crazy guy telling me anyways? I hope it's nothing perverted...ugh. Hey, how'd you even pay attention? You were as silent, and still, as a fricken' rock! Of course that wasn't much help for me..." I'd been meaning to ask for a while, but "certain circumstances" had distracted me. Ruri glared and then scrunched her eyes in concentration for a little.

"Just because I'm quiet doesn't mean I'm deaf." She paused for a bit, "Um, I think I'm going to have to give you a literal translation because it didn't make that much sense." That sounded fishy.

"Alrighty then."

"It's something like, uh, 'Welcome my beautiful princesses, oh a new princess! Your hair is like' uh, 'a wave of black midnight that shines of the stars'", I rolled my eyes, Oh gracious God, "and then he said something like, 'and your eyes glisten with'. I think he was about to go on, but you kicked him in the balls and impaired his ability to think." Ruri laughed to herself, but I was frowning in confusion. The blond guy sounded a lot like a regular player (_A/N: A player is a stupid guy that spends their life leading on multiple girls and then brags about it subsequently)_ with cheesy pick-up lines. What was he thinking? What kind of people were they? What do they do? I mean, I'd only met two of the seven guys and so far they were listed in my book as The Molesting Player and The Threatening Kidnapper, and that's only if I were limited to two words. I responded to Ruri,

"Weirdos." She scoffed back,

"Well duh."

"It kind of makes me afraid that every time I talk to someone in Japan I'm going to be violated in some way, shape, or form." We looked at each other, and then laughed. We had returned to Class 1-A.

"Sure Alice, sure." And we entered for another learning session.

* * *

I wasn't as nervous as before when we were in class, because I had at least an inkling of knowing what to expect. Last time, I pictured all these different, paranoid, possibilities of my meeting with the Raven, from him simply leaving me to myself all the way to him cornering me in a dark place to murder me…or worse. It sounds ridiculous but I've learned that you always have to prepare for the worst-case scenario. Still, I was a little nervous, and I could tell Ruri was too, though she put on a brave face as she was shaking her hand.

"Ah, I hate writer's cramp." Class was let out.

"Nehh! I feel so guilty! You have to suffer because I don't know the language of the country I live in." I felt terrible; Ruri was in pain because of my stupidity.

"It's fine. Don't worry about it. Hmm…" I heard a slight "vrrrb" sound, and I realized I was familiar with it. Ruri pulled her phone out of her pocket, and after glancing at it,

"It's yours." She handed it to me, and the Caller ID revealed it was my mother.

So let me explain, having international calling on your phone is super expensive, so Ruri's mom and my mom decided to split the phone bill costs and give Ruri and me one phone to share. Sharing is caring (unless it's STD's) and Ruri and I were constantly together, so I didn't mind the slightest. We unanimously decided that Ruri should keep the phone; she was more responsible regarding… material possessions.

~~2 Years Ago~~  
My family was coming back from dinner, pulling into the driveway. I wanted to check the time, so I searched my pockets for my cell, which was apparently non-existent.

"Has anyone seen my phone?" All of the sudden, the car shook slightly.

_*Crack*_

"Ah, shoot."

~~Present~~

"Hello?"

"Alice! How are you? I've missed you so much! Why haven't you called? How's Japan? Don't you miss your mommy?" Mom said this in about one breath and at a million miles an hour.

"Hi mom. Sorry I haven't called, things have just been kind of… busy." Oh how I love you, vague wording.

"How's school, is the translation working out okay for you? How's Ruri? Are you safe? Are you having fun?"

"School's okay. It's different than at home, that's for sure. The translation is fine, but I feel bad for Ruri because she keeps getting hand-cramps, and yeah, it's pretty cool, I get to see a bunch of new things. What about you?" I sneakily skipped Mom's third interrogation, but I knew she wouldn't notice.

"Carrolline's almost done with school. One month left for her! I'm glad she's doing well. But, not much else is interesting. It makes me sad to see your room empty. It's like you're already in college…" Uh oh, I could tell what was coming next, "you're growing up so fast, too fast! Come back!" I could see her trying not to sound like she was almost crying. It made me sad that I made her sad. That's just how I am.

"Mom, don't worry. I have to go now so I'll call you later. I love you!"

"I love you too, don't forget to call me back!"

"Okay, bye!" I hung up and handed the phone over to Ruri. She placed it back in her pocket. I noticed something.

"Do your parents not call you?" I probably should've been more sensitive, but Ruri's tough. She smirked.

"Psh, I wish. My mom calls constantly, I just don't really want to talk to her."

"Aw, that's so sad!"

"She calls, like, every two hours! I actually counted!" I bit my lip, hesitating and debating whether or not I should ask the next question.

"How's Roni?" She shrugged as if to suggest indifference.

My little sister and Ruri's little sister were in the same grade, but that's pretty much where the similarity ends. Well, that and the correlating names. My mom loves Lewis Carroll (Alice and Carrolline), and Ruri's mom loves… the letters R and I…I guess (Ruri and Roni). Anyways, you'd think that Carrolline and Roni would be pre-destined best friends, but, alas, no. They weren't enemies, but they were just complete opposites. Let's just say that if someone came up to Carrolline and suggested that they go to a rave, Carrolline would ask why they'd want to go see a bird, and Roni would... already be there. I was lost in thought when I heard Ruri curse.

"Shit! What times is it?" I think she was asking herself, because she pulled out the phone to check the time without looking at me.

"Ah! We're twenty minutes late. Let's go!" Oh right, the music room. Whoo hoo.

* * *

Once we got there, we wasted another five minutes debating about who would open the door, because once we opened it, there really was no going back, even if that sounds cliché. Paranoia was creeping back to me. What were they planning back there? What were they going to do? We finally decided to each pull one door at the same time. I counted.

"On three. One, two, three!" We pulled, but silently. We didn't want to make a giant fuss.

More mysterious lighting.

More mysterious wind.

But no mysterious posing or costuming. In fact, the environment was completely different, but still appalling.

Girls in butter-cream dresses were everywhere, surrounding each gang member while making no attempt to hide their adoring faces. I guess Ruri and I were really good at being ninja-like, because no one paid attention to us. I looked to the left and froze for a second in fear. It was the Blond Creeper. In his arms was a girl with long, blond hair. They were in the very same position the creeper tried to pull on me only a day earlier. Well, he rebounds quickly. I rolled my eyes; he sure looked like he was in whole lot of "pain and suffering" (_A/N: Refer to previous chapter_). I was about to run over and warn the girl she was about to be molested, but something held me back. Ruri's mouth had fallen to the floor, her eyes were thrice as big as usual, and she staring at something over to the right.

"Oh my god."

* * *

Forgive me. It's a cliffhanger. It's nothing drastic though. I promise _


	7. Misunderstanding

Sorry for the cliffhanger! I'm evil, and it's really just because I got lazy. I knew that I had to get Ruri and Alice to at least enter the Host Club Room in the last chapter, but much after that would have been too much. Ah~ laziness. But I have redeemed myself with a long-ish chapter! Anyways, enjoy!

!NEW!: **Bold** talk is Ruri's translations

Disclaimer: Because I am not the lovely Bisco Hatori, I do not own Ouran High School Host Club. Because I am AliceinBlunderland, I made the plot line, Alice, Ruri, Roni, Carrolline, and Mom.

* * *

誤解- Misunderstanding

~_Recap~_

"_On three. One, two, three!" We pulled, but silently…_

_More mysterious lighting._

_More mysterious wind._

_But no mysterious posing or costuming…_

_Girls in butter-cream dresses were everywhere, surrounding each gang member while making no attempt to hide their adoring faces…_

_I looked to the left and froze for a second in fear. It was the Blond Creeper…_

_I was about to run over and warn the girl she was about to be molested, but something held me back…_

_Ruri's mouth had fallen to the floor and her eyes were thrice as big as usual…_

"_Oh my god."_

So the fact that shy Ruri could even talk (even if it was for an exclamation) in a threatening situation like this meant that whatever she was staring at was big. So big, it turned her out of Robot-Ruri mode. I whipped my head, thinking someone was in danger, and there he was.

A small, blond-haired (I tend to identify people by their colorful dead protein) boy, amidst all these gang members and flirty girls (which brought me to wonder how all of these non-Caucasian people had blond hair). He had to be less than eight years old, or at least he looked like it. In front of him was a ridiculously large five-tiered, frosting-slathered, cake. It was, maybe, three times as large as his body. To his right sat an intimidating black-hair. He watched over the boy eerily. It was hard to notice at first, but if you really paid attention, every movement the boy made, the Intimid-ator shifted to mirror it.

Now that I think about it, my assumptions were pretty humorous.

But then again, what was more realistic? "Hi, I'm Haninozuka Mitsukuni. I'm a senior in high school that's a rumored weapon of mass destruction. I just happen to look and be like a five-year old who enjoys bunnies and sweets to the extent of pure, religious obsession. Oh, and him? He's my cousin despite major physicality differences. He's predestined to protect my life since the day of our birth even though I need his protection as much as you need an English translator!" Or… "Hi, I'm Haninozuka Mitsukuni. I'm an innocent little boy who was dragged here by the scary man in the glasses. I'm forced to eat lots and lots of cake because the scary man said that it would attract more girls and bring in something called, "profit". Oh, and him? He makes sure I don't escape and eat all of my cake like a good boy." Well, the latter made more sense at the time… at least to me.

That could not be healthy. Forget low nutrition and type two diabetes, the little guy's stomach would fricken' explode! This was fricken' child abuse!

Okay, calm down.

If there's one thing I'm really good at, it's knowing other people's emotions, especially in relationships. It's not a superpower, most definitely not. I just look at people's expressions and body language. I hear their voice, but not as much to what they're saying but how they're saying it, and I feel the environment of the room. Of course, it's better if I know the person better (Carrolline, for example, thinks I'm a mind-reader). Everyone could do it, if they just paid enough attention.

At this stage, I knew that the Little Blond didn't think he was being abused. That, and the notion that his relationship with the Intimid-ator wasn't malicious in any way… So the abuse couldn't have been all that bad.

I also knew that Ruri was confused as heck.

A shrilling scream blasted through the room and I instinctively looked to its source. Could this place have one moment of peace? Even farther right stood the pair of twins that sat behind Ruri and me in class. Thank goodness we were off to the sidewall, hidden behind a shadow-casting column. I didn't want to face the awkwardness of recognition. It took some time to register that the twins were in a lover's pose. The older one had the younger one's chin cupped in his hand, and pulled upwards to meet his face. Just like yesterday. Could it have really been only two days? They had a look of adoration on their faces, though the gesture wasn't as effective as it could've been, seeing that their dramatic backdrop were fainted girls' bodies. A disgusting thought occurred to me. I whispered,

"Um, Ruri, isn't that incest?" Her eyes had previously been staring at the cake-eating phenomenon, and they shifted over to where I silently gestured. Geez, her eyes have never stretched this wide before. She mustered enough sanity to manage a nod. Oh right, she was in Robot Mode.

And it struck me that this was not something I (or Ruri) could deal with. We had to leave. I, once again, grabbed Ruri's hand. Man, intense déjà vu. I turned around, causing Ruri to rotate around me, but only to wind up staring at an uncomfortably close-up version of a boy's uniform. Shoot. Shootshootshoot. I didn't have to look at his face to know who this was.

"I see you've decided to join us this afternoon. Why don't you two join me here?" He gestured over to a small, round table; this was becoming way too familiar. I had no more fears though, but I still had to tug Ruri's hand. He pulled out both chairs for us. Fine, _one _brownie point, but I could play his game as well. She zombily sat down on the comfy chair next to me.

"So," I started pleasantly, even though it was really awkward since I had just blown a fuse at the guy a couple of hours earlier, "Why don't you introduce us to your… gathering?" He, ugh, smirked.

"Why, of course. Welcome, ladies, to the Ouran High School Host Club…"

"…where rich people with too much time on their hands get entertained by other rich guys that have no lives." Raven and I both turned to look at Ruri, surprised by her outburst, "Or something like that." She eyed us, "What? I hear about it in class, I'm just too busy writing stuff down about algebraic functions…" She looked back at her lap. I took up the silence,

"Um, sorry, but a 'host' club? What's that?" He closed his eyes and recited his answer, as if having a lot of practice, "We entertain young ladies, such as yourselves, and strive to make them happier beings." Huh, so now women were "beings". I'm sorry, but this sounded… wrong. He continued, "We achieve this by channeling our marketable features to the ladies, for example. Tamaki," he pointed to the Creepy Molester, "second year, and the president of the Host Club, is the 'princely' type." _Princely type?_ I snickered, loudly, despite my lacking efforts to hold it back. Great, people were staring at us again. Raven glanced, some-what inquiring,

"Is there something that amuses you, Miss Kim?" I looked around, people were whispering among themselves and trying (failing) to pretend that they weren't eavesdropping. But… I didn't really care, they couldn't understand me.

"Okay, sorry. I've been in contact with your 'club' for an estimated total of half an hour, and I've seen promiscuity, child abuse, and incest, just to name a few," this kind of came out in spurts because I was laughing so hard, "and you're telling me that this actually attracts girls and makes them happier? Not to mention that you're guys' definition of a 'prince' is an assaulter. You're kidding me, right?" I took one look at his face, "Okay never mind, you don't kid." Ruri laughed quietly beside me. Again, I should've probably been "nicer", but I was thought this was really funny. Japan's been crazy so far.

Raven frowned and stared at me, not like he was angry, but like he was trying to read me. Did he not understand how silly this whole situation was? Or was I the weird one?

"Al…" Ruri started.

"Yeah, I know." Like I couldn't notice a pair of twins breathing down my back (Raven's a bit more inconspicuous). They started talking,

"Kyoya-senpai…" That's all I got. After that was a bunch of jibber-jabber I couldn't understand. I guess Kyoya was Raven's first name, and I'd been in school long enough to know what "senpai" meant. So he had to be at least in the 2nd year. Thankfully Ruri started whispering the translation.

"Um, okay, **Kyoya-senpai, who is this? A new toy! Hey! She's the new scholar-girl that came and kicked mi'lord in the **you know where**! Anyone who does that is**," Ruri's eyebrows knitted in confusion, "Uh, **worth playing with**?" That sounded really scary. Kyoya, I think, spoke up,

"I believe you've met these two in your class. Hikaru and Kaoru Hitachiin." Again, more jibber-jabber from Kyoya, but I heard my name so he was probably introducing us. He was probably also pointing out the fact that I couldn't understand a single word of Japanese. After a brief introduction, the twins looked at me, Ruri, then at each other, and back at us,

"Kim-san! Kato-san!" One twin stood on each side of Ruri and me, and both proceeded to give us a hug, their arms cocooning us, leaving no room to escape. If you hadn't noticed already, I'm not a big fan of "physical contact", but right as I was about to elbow the one on my right in the ribs, they let go of us and turned our chairs around in a flash. Their arms hung over loosely around each other's shoulders, in a "friendly" pose. Kind of like those weird side-hugs. One of them started talking some more and I looked helplessly to Ruri.

"**I'm Hikaru"** Okay then. The other one piped up.

**"**… **and I'm Kaoru, now that you know our names…" **Both of them started speaking at the same time. I suddenly got a glimpse of the future headaches I would be getting.

**"**…**let's play the 'Which one is Hikaru' game!"** They mussed each other's hair up, obviously excited to see our up-coming frustration, mixed themselves up, and spoke again.

**"****Which one is Hikaru?"** They looked at both of us expectantly. Kyoya went away (I think he'd seen this "game" too many times) and walked over to an awaiting laptop.

"Can you tell them I don't really give a dang to which is which?" I asked sarcastically to Ruri. This was silly.

"Uh, okay then," replied clueless Ruri. She started speaking in Japanese.

"No! I was just kidding!" I cried. Why didn't she understand? Great, I was going to be a burnt marshmallow by the end of today. Tell my mother I loved her. Ruri rolled her eyes,

"Well, you could've told me." I gave her the best death glare I could, which probably wasn't too frightening. Meanwhile, the twins looked a little shocked. You'd think that they would've met people that never cared about who was who before. One started talking,

"They're wondering if you're even going to guess." Ruri translated.

"Would it really give you guys that much satisfaction if I just guessed? The way I see it, it's bad either way." I had to talk I spurts again, so that Ruri could translate easier.

"Either I guess wrong, and you guys are disappointed, or I guess right." Another pause. They didn't know it, but I'd seen their act many times before, just in different variations, I knew what was coming. "And you guys would still be disappointed because it was just a good guess. Why is this even a game? I don't imagine you do it for the girls' sake, that seems too selfless." Pause. People should stop staring at me. I might get used to it. "So you must be playing the girls. So what is it? Do you lie about the guesses? Has everyone gotten it wrong by some sort of magical chance?" Their faces told it all. They didn't need to speak. I was cruel, and I was annoyed. Was everyone around here so manipulative? I was so sick of it, it's almost as bad as America! But… maybe it wasn't entirely their fault; they were probably raised that way. Anything is yours or can be yours to play with if you're rich. I sighed and pointed to the one on the left.

"Hikaru." I pointed to the one on the right.

"Kaoru." A beat of silence followed. I took the opportunity to stand up and talk to Ruri.

"I'm probably just going to end up calling them Idiot 1 and Idiot 2 anyways. Hey, I'm going to go outside for a little, I'll come back, stay here. Can you lend me the phone?" I saw a rebellious look fly over Ruri's face as she moved to stand up, but I pressed her back down.

"No, seriously, I have to talk alone." She wordlessly handed me the cell with an unreadable expression on her face.

"Thanks," and I headed out for a short break from this crazy place.

* * *

Did she get it wrong? Did she get it right? Find out next time! Hahaha.


	8. Words

This chapter is dedicated to the real-life Ruri (she knows who she is) and the following people:

-My reviewers! Much thanks to: Champion of Justice, xXEmiShaeXx (special thanks for reviewing every chapter), starandmouseyproductions, BeLu-Chan, woodspritethatconqueredpeople (cool pen name, by the way), and RoriandOreo.

-My out-of-country viewers who read this even if a lot of the jokes don't mean anything to them! Hi-lo to those in: Canada, Phillipines, and Paraguay. Also: India, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, the UK, Romania, Estonia, Chile, and Finland.

Now without further ado, enjoy the story!

Just kidding, I have to tell everyone I'm not Bisco Hatori and therefore do not own Ouran, just in case you didn't know that already.

* * *

ジャガイモ-Words

_~Recap~_

"…_**let's play the 'Which one is Hikaru' game!" …**_

_I don't really give a dang to which is which…_

"_Would it really give you guys that much satisfaction if I just guessed? The way I see it, it's bad either way."…_

"_Hikaru." I pointed to the one on the right._

"_Kaoru." …_

_"I have to talk alone." She wordlessly handed me the cell with an unreadable expression on her face…_

"_Thanks," and I headed out for a short break from this crazy place…_

~Ruri POV~

Alice just decided to leave me here, by myself, with these deranged people… what the hell? That phone call better be important. While I was steaming in frustration, the twins, I think their names were Hikaru and Kaoru, snapped out of their disoriented faces, and smiled,

"She got it wrong!" What?

"Uh, no she didn't." No more smiling. Sigh, really? Were they really such idiots that they were confused about their own identities? "Unless you guys introduced yourselves wrong," I pointed to the left, "you're Hika-something," and I pointed to the right, "and you're… the other one." They looked at each other, obviously surprised.

"How… how did you know?" Kaoru started, "There's only been one other person that could figure out who we were…"

"… and she was also a scholar student." Hikaru finished. I shrugged my shoulders.

"I dunno, maybe you need to meet more transfer students." Truth was I wasn't entirely sure myself how I could tell who was who. When they presented themselves, in my head one was marked "Hikaru" and the other was marked "Kaoru", not "Twins". That's all I could explain. Everyone is separate in my head. They should ask Alice, she's better with all the inter-personal/mind stuff.

"Hikaru, Kaoru, leave the poor girl alone!" A voice came from the side of us. I turned my head to see who it was. Ah crap, it was the other guy in my class. God forbid he comes with another "game" for me to play. He came over, holding a teapot in his hand.

"Hello, I'm Fujioka Haruhi, it's nice to meet you outside of class." He gave me his other hand to shake, which I did hesitantly. "I see you've met the twins, sorry about them, I know this can be a little overwhelming…" He paused, searching for something on the table, then called to the twins, "Hey, can one of you grab this lady a teacup from the cupboard over there?" The younger one nodded,

"Yeah, I'll do it." Fujioka Haruhi nodded back in appreciation,

"Thanks, Kaoru." _Hmm?_

"So, are you two the new scholarship students?" Fujioka (_A/N_: _Ruri notes them by how they introduce themselves. She doesn't know Kyoya's last name and the Hitachiins are introduced separately)_ took a seat next to me and sat the teapot down.

"Yeah…" He sensed my unwillingness to speak.

"How are you adjusting? I know it can be tough; I'm a transfer student as well. So if you have any questions, feel free to ask me anything!" _Hmm._

"Uh, are there any others?" I asked. Fujioka looked disconcerted, as if he wasn't expecting that question, but he quickly regained his normal expression.

"Not that I know of."** _Hmm?_** "Although if you're really interested, I can get someone to look into that in detail." Fujioka threw a glance to Kyoya.

"No, no, it's okay." Hikaru came over with a cup. Fujioka looked a little confused.

"I thought I asked Kaoru to get the cup." Hikaru sat down on the remaining chair and placed the teacup on the table in front of me.

"I wanted a chance to talk to our new guest, so I told him I'd bring it back instead." He grinned evilly. Alice, wherever the hell you are, you'd better come back so I can strangle you for leaving me here.

~Alice POV~

Once I entered the hallway and got out of hearing distance, I punched in the numbers on the cell and pressed call.

_Ring. Ring. Ring. Ri-click._

"Hello?" Ah, I've missed that voice.

"Hey, Carrolline."

"_Alice_?" Came the excited response.

"Yup." Exclamations and "you haven't called-s" were quickly exchanged.

"So…" we knew our conversation would somehow lead to this, but we put it off as long as we could, "what did mom and dad say about moving?"

"They said they're still thinking about it." She said the words spitefully, and there was a pause, "Al, they never listen to me! They act like they do but they just nod and say 'yeah' all the time. I don't want to move! I'm sick of it! We've done it like eight times already and I've finally found a place that I _like_ to be in." She must have been holding this in for a while now, because she never complains (except for the nights she has "massive" amounts of homework). But she was right; my parents don't really listen to her. When she was little, she used to chatter nonstop, the topics were usually forgettable, so after awhile, my mom and dad learned to tune out of her speeches. I was always the one speaking on her behalf. But now that I was gone, she didn't have a say. After this long pause, I heard her speak up again.

"Alice, can I go to Japan with you and Ruri? I'd rather be in Japan then… _over there." _Wow, she didn't even want to say the place's name, "I mean, isn't there a middle school like, right next to your school? I promise I won't be annoying, and…" She was desperate.

"Lline (my nickname for her), I'm sorry, but I don't think that's possible…" More silence, "I mean, you'd need a translator, don't even think about Roni, and also contact the administrator, who's really weird by the way, and I don't think Mom and Dad want to lose another child." I took care not to mention other, _certain_, weird people in Japan.

"They don't even care if I exist!" Oh angst.

"Yes they do!" Pause. "Look, Lline, I'll talk to Mom later. I mean, they never said 'yes' for sure. Just hang in there, okay?" A sigh came from the other end.

"Fine," and she hung up right away. Oh boy.

I knew I had to go save Ruri, she could only last so long by herself with a bunch of crazy guys, so I turned around and, once again, met Rave-, er, Kyoya. God, that's going to be a hard habit to drop.

"You know," I started after I regained my breath, "you should really stop doing that. Eavesdropping is really rude where I come from. It's also common courtesy to, uh, not stalk people. Could you at least announce your presence every now and then so that I don't die a premature death by heart-attack one of these days?" I tried to maneuver around him, but he wouldn't have any of it, blocking my moves.

"Yes, but wouldn't announcing my presence defeat my purpose of eavesdropping?" He smiled. I knew provocation when I saw it.

"Look, what do you want? My talk was none of your business, and even if it was, it's not that interesting."

"Your observation skills are quite amusing, Miss Kim," I'm starting to hate that title, "yours and Miss Kato's."

"What are you talking about?"

"You both were able to differentiate the Hitachiins, a feat almost none have accomplished." He glared at me, as if I were hiding something. What? Am I an American spy now? I was given information by the government to spy on Japanese lives? Or I was going to infiltrate their club and bring it down one person at a time? How cliché. We had a stare down, and I started laughing… again.

"Hahahaha! Oh my goodness, I don't get what your so suspicious about, but don't take it so seriously! I just guessed." He looked at me with a brow raised. "What? They wouldn't shut up or leave us alone so I played their game and ran out of there. Ruri's a different story, though." He smirked and was about to say something, but a voice interrupted.

"**Leave me the hell alone! I have no idea!" **Shoot. That was Ruri's voice. I could only imagine what they were doing to her.

"Okay, so now that I'm off your 'suspected terrorists' list, I'm gonna go." I swiveled around his block and started walking. Halfway through, I turned around, "If my friend dies, mentally, emotionally, or physically, I am personally holding you liable." Sticking my tongue out probably wasn't too mature, but I wanted to get my point across.

* * *

I am so freakin' tired of this glittery wind. You can only take so many sparkles.

I expected to see the worst, something I don't want to explain, but all I saw was Ruri's head down on top of the table, over folded arms. Next to her was one of the twins; laid-back in his chair and on the other side sat the other guy in our class, who was attempting to bring her out of her "closed-off" position. Little did they know, she was as useful as a fainted person.

"Hey! You aren't going to want to do that!" They looked over, mildly surprised. I walked over, furious. I didn't care if they didn't understand a word I said.

"What the heck did you guys do to her? This is so stupid!" I pointed to the brown-hair and made a point-flick movement with my finger.

"You, out of that chair," I pointed to the twin and zipped my finger in a downward motion, "you stay," I turned around to face Raven, who I knew followed me, "and you, sit down… and tell the rest of your club to leave us alone!" They all followed my commands, even if the first looked confused and the latter rolled their eyes. I heard Kyoya mumble something to everyone, who all looked a little disoriented at first, but went back to business easy enough. I guess they had short attention spans. I was still standing, and I slammed my hands on the edge of the table. Ruri was now in between the two, Raven to the left, and Twin to the right. I turned to Kyo-whatever.

"Look, because of whatever little stunt your 'friends' pulled on Ruri, she's not going to be able to talk for the next 8-plus hours so you're going to have to do the translating. And don't try and change my words because if I find out, I'm not listening to any one of your propositions no matter how often you bug us about it. Now please ask your friend here what the hay he was doing!" I nearly yelled. I would've just walked out of there, but I was going to avenge Ruri, and she was in no state to walk yet. It bugged me to see that the Twin was still nonchalant when he gave the answer.

"He says he was just," pause, "trying to understand how Miss Kato could differentiate the two. He's very interested, seeing how their differences aren't usually noticeable. He says your friend wouldn't give him a straight answer." I face-palmed.

"You idiot! She wasn't trying to confuse you! She actually didn't understand! And you wouldn't be able to get it anyways, judging from your great deductive skills." My words dripped in sarcasm. After translations, Twin gave me an "oh, really" look.

"Hikaru wants to know if you know any better." If I could, I would've slapped the guy.

"To think I actually sympathized for you. Fine, but it's not my fault if you can't understand." More Japanese exchanged, but I continued without waiting for a response, although it's noteworthy to mention Kyoya looked pretty interested as well. I thought about it. "The only things I can compare it to… are words. To Ruri, people are words. Each word is different, and they have a different meaning. You and your brother are like homonyms, you know, words with the same spelling but a different meaning. She identifies by the meaning, not the spelling." Pause for response.

"He understands that the similar spellings are their physical appearances, but what do the definitions, or meanings represent?"

"To tell you the truth… I have no idea." I pondered, "It's not personality, she would have to have known you longer. I don't know, Ruri's weird."

"And you?"

"Sorry?"

"He'd like to know how _you_ could tell them apart."

"Like I said, I just guessed." More translations, and although he didn't show it, I could tell he was slightly disappointed. I sighed, "Look, what do you expect? I met you guys for like, five seconds. Ruri's weird, but I actually have to get a grasp on your personalities," I paused, realizing something, "not that I want to or am accepting opportunities to. But if I knew you guys better I could probably tell you apart, eventually."

"But we can." Kyoya responded.

"Sorry?" Can this guy ever elaborate on his wording?

"We can, as a club, give you the opportunity to know us better, which is actually why I requested your presence today." I guess Kyoya was speaking for himself again. "Although you haven't had the best first impression of our gatherings," oh really, "we truly have the best intentions, to make our guests happier." Okay then. "But we face the dilemma of having our two seniors graduating this year." What seniors? I didn't see any in here. Whatever.

"Um, could you get to the point?" I didn't see where this was going. Kyoya sighed and adjusted his glasses.

"I would like you and Miss Kato to join us, to become the additional members of the Ouran High School Host Club." He finished, funny enough, leaving no room for elaboration. Thanks a lot.


	9. Extremely Fancy Tuna?

I'm so evil, look what I did here. I took my sweet time getting this up, and you guys got a shorter chapter. Er, I have an excuse though! I was working on my one-shot, "Do You Remember?" If you want, you can go read it. It's a little HaruhixKyoya shot about their preschool years. Well, I hope you like this chapter anyways, there's a little more comic relief. Hehe.

Disclaimer: I don't own Ouran High School Host Club. Bisco Hatori does, but I thought of Ruri, Alice, and a bunch of other things that don't really matter elsewhere.

* * *

トマト-Extremely Fancy Tuna?

_~Recap~_

"_I would like you and Miss Kato to join us, to become the additional members of the Ouran High School Host Club."_

Pause. This wasn't going to work, but I was going to try anyways.

I started laughing,

"You are actually a lot funnier than people give you credit for, hehe." I stopped, praying he would get the hint.

"I am not making a joke, Miss Kim." Cringe. Darn it, here comes the second try.

"I was born Alice, call me Alice." He looked a little confused. "It makes me feel more like a human being, and not an item."

"Well then, I was born an Ootori, which means I know what purposefully changing the subject to avoid certain matters looks like." Man, he's good.

"Look, I don't care if you're an 'Ootori', isn't that a type of fish?" That was a half-truth. I'd heard the name somewhere, but I wasn't recalling it, and from the little Japanese that I knew, it sounded a lot like some sort of high-class tuna. But whatever, my last chance out of this was to inadvertently insult his family name. Unfortunately, he smiled.

"Miss Alice, that's 'ootoro'." He smiled, as if remembering something, then snapped out of it, "Now, because I'm and Ootori, I'm not a very patient person, so I would like to hear your opinion on my proposal which I know you have heard clearly." Strike three, and I'm out. I was never good at sports. I took a deep breath,

"Fine, but by the way, I really don't care about you being an Ootori, because I have no idea who they are. Plus, I don't think it's scientifically accurate that a surname reflects personality." Hopefully he wouldn't use his last name to intimidate me anymore. I continued, "Anyways, why would Ruri and I think of joining your club? I don't think you have room in the first place. You already have child abusers, molesters, stalkers, incest-ers, and creepers, and I don't think Ruri and I are going to want to fit that bill in the first place." Well, that was my side, and I doubted I was going to get through unless I used logic, "Plus, all of your 'princesses' are, well, 'princesses', not 'princes', and there is no way in heck I'm going to cross-dress or go through any other 'changes'. In fact, I don't see a reason why I _should _join, it's just going to take away my time and I'd be surrounded by people I'd want to sock in the face 24/7." I smiled, taking the image into my mind, but I knew I wouldn't be able to. Unless under extreme stress, I couldn't hurt a fly, but he didn't know that, or at least I hope not. " So, not thank you." In the corner of my eye, I saw Ruri come up from her "closed-off" position, and I knew she'd been listening, but she still couldn't talk.

"Hooray! Ruri's awake! You know, she doesn't do that very often; maybe she needs to see a doctor. Come, Ruri." I took that first chance to get away.

"Miss Alice, you should now that running away from your problems won't solve many things."

"Yeah," I murmured under my breath, "but that still suggests it solves other things." I heard Kyoya chuckle, and then call out something in Japanese. The brown-hair answered and walked back.

"Haruhi, here, will be happy to escort Miss Ruri over to a nurse." I guess he wasn't going to give up. I sat down and watched the brown-hair go.

"Fine." Kyoya rose his eyebrows slightly.

"I see your tolerance level is rising."

"I'm just glad you got the gay guy to go with her instead of one of your other crazies." I pointed out. He just glared at me.

"Excuse me?" He actually looked a little ticked.

"Well it was either he _had_ a history of child abuse, _has_ a terminal illness, or _is _gay. Or something like that. I just chose the most likely situation." Silence.

"I assure you, Fujioka Haruhi is not homosexual." He sounded ticked, slash amused, slash annoyed, slash some other unreadable emotion. I could see the danger though.

"Okay, okay." I raised my hands in a "backing off" motion, "It's just that you guys are way too overprotective of the guy. It doesn't help that you dress him in girl's clothing. What's up with that anyways? Cross-dressing for fun?"

"It's cosplay, Miss Alice, it's a very popular activity in Japan and it draws in customers. It is common for each gender to, as you say, 'cross dress' to play a character of their gender counterpart."

"Cosplay," I rolled the word in my mouth, "is basically cross-dressing dress-up? Then why is he the only one dressing up as a…"

"Never mind. It seems you need to learn a little bit more about our culture. Now, where were we?" He kind of asked that last part to himself.

"Socking people in the face 24/7."

He smiled… sort of, "Ah, yes. Well, there are some merits to joining this club. Although you were correct, I wouldn't waste any time chasing law suits with a mere commoner," thanks, "I believe you carry some sort of emotional debt. Guilt, possibly?" Ack, seriously?

"What'd you expect me to do? Hug him back? Just stand there? I don't have any guilt as far as I'm concerned. I was just defending myself! In America, people don't come up to you, hug you, pretend they're about to kiss you, and expect to get away with it without injury!"

"You forget, Miss Alice, that you are in Japan now. Also, it was your mistake to step into our club, not knowing our rules or how we work, so you cannot possibly hold us accountable. After all, Tamaki was just trying to make you happy, and you hurt him." He smirked. Gosh, he was good. It didn't take him long to find out what makes me feel bad, but he wasn't stopping there. "Besides compensating for your emotional baggage, being a host exposes you to more to Japanese culture and society, something I'm sure would benefit you. You could, perhaps, stop making mistakes and leaving others paying for them." Okay, this was getting way too low.

"Dude, you're trying way too hard, and that's low. I made one mistake, you can't just assume that I'm gonna go around and hurt people now. The best thing about a mistake is learning from it."

"True, but it was just an observation. Also, I'm quite sure that being a host, you will learn to grasp the language faster, and maybe Miss Kato won't have to… work so hard." Flashbacks of Ruri shaking her hand from writer's cramp and furiously writing things down fled through my mind. It was true, she was working too hard, and I was quite possibly burdening her. He was getting to me.

"Could you, uh, shut up for a second?" I turned to look out the window. These people weren't all that bad, I guess. They're eyes weren't shifty, as if the things they'd done could get them attacked any time soon, they were… accommodating. And I guess they thought they were doing something "good", even if the logic it was twisted, and Raven was right, I did feel a little bit guilty, as much as I hated to admit it. Worst of all, though, I knew that joining the club had a good chance of lowering my burden to Ruri. Darn it, I could already tell Raven was some sort of born businessman. I finally spoke,

"What exactly are you going to make us do?" I looked straight into his eyes, I knew he was smirking because I knew he knew I was cracking down. Wow, that's a lot of knowing. I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of a scowl, or the satisfaction he would gain by a look of defeat, I was going to read him this time.

* * *

There's a time skip in the next chapter, not really major, but I figured this would go on _way _too long if I didn't include it. Maybe I'll include it as a bonus chapter later…


	10. Pride

Enter… the Time Skip! It's a plot-twister. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I am not Bisco Hatori. I am not making money off of this. I don't own her characters. I also am not Jane Austen. I don't own her characters, either. I am also not … a potato?

***Boldened*** sentences are Ruri's translations.

Dedicated to: Jane Austen

* * *

**Pride-**プライド

**"Have you met any authentic, true-to-life cowboys in America? The one's that say 'y'all' and wear those boots and all that?"**

No. "Oh, of course. They ride around _every day_, on their stallions. They usually stop by the General Market to get some veal and then they take the Oregon Trail back home." I plastered on a fake smile, glad they couldn't make out my sarcastic voice. These guys had a screwed-up education about the United States.

"**Wow, that's **_so_** cool. How was your life?" **

"Well, I woke up every day at five o'clock, because that's when the harvesting starts. You see, we have this giant…" what was that word… oh yeah, "plantation. Even though I'm the eldest daughter, I still had to work." The girls looked at each other, mouths agape. There was a guy, too, writing all this shenanigans down. Ruri looked as tired as I was. The boy spoke.

"**What do you guys eat for lunch? Did you make the bento yourselves?"**

"Um, yeah. We always made them for ourselves." I glanced around awkwardly. The guests looked surprised after the translation. The boys asked another question.

"What did we do for fun?" Ruri asked, translating the question.

"Tell them we…" I thought about it, "liked to throw tea off the nearby harbor to tick off the British, our mortal enemies." Ruri grinned, and then turned back to her serious face to answer the question. If they were smarter, they would've realized that I was mentally flipping through the pages of my 8th grade U.S. history textbook. They should've at least figured that plantations were in the South, nowhere near any harbors, but, alas,

"**Wow!"** Wasn't this school supposed to be really expensive and, thereby, really, uh I don't know, informative?

It's been three days of being the new girl hostesses… though we're more like foreigners on display. "Come to Ouran High School Host Club, featuring a new foreigner zoo!" It's a two-way "cultural-immersion" program, as Raven calls it, and it's also supposed to introduce guy guests, but we're basically creatures in exhibit. Ruri was shocked, to say in the least, when I said we were joining. I didn't want to tell Ruri it was because of my guilt over her pain, so I just blamed it on the Ootori. With a lot of persuading, she ended up coming with me, like she always does. Sometimes apathy's a blessing.

It hasn't been all that bad, though. I recently found out that the girls and guys that come over to be hosted, pretty much ask the same types of questions… and they have no idea if you lie to their faces.

"**What about the boys? Did you have boyfriends in America?"** Ugh, I hated the "boyfriend question". It seemed to cross the minds of _every _single girl in this school. I thought about it.

"No, I had better things to do than be romanced. Although, there was one boy who tried to pursue me, his name was… Fitzwilliam Darcy. But he had an overwhelmingly large sense of pride, and he thought anyone who just looked at him would fall in love with him. He was pretty obnoxious, so I just ignored him." I smiled. I love _Pride and Prejudice_. "Anyone with that mentality probably doesn't deserve someone in the first place." I heard someone laugh behind me. I sighed and turned around.

"Laugh as much as you choose, but you will not laugh me out of my opinion." I quoted Chapter 17. Yes, I'm that much of a nerd.

Raven smirked back, "_My _good opinion, once lost, is lost forever." Ah, Chapter 11. Of course he would know what I was talking about.

I smiled sweetly, "And hallelujah for that." I was joking, but now I really wish Jane Austen had actually written that in her prized novel. Raven's smile was swept off his face, and he looked a little ticked. He was about to say something. It was probably a threat.

"Hey, hey, don't worry about it, I was just kidding. For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?" Chapter 57.

He huffed impatiently. "I would appreciate it if you refrained from lying to our customers."

"But why? It doesn't hurt the profit, does it?" I know the guy has a heart, way deep down there, that wasn't obsessed with profit, but this couldn't be for plain ethics.

"No, but it hurts our merit when our guests have a dinner party with a famous historian, and they decide to talk about a transferred classmate who's older brother fought against the Indians to claim back their land." Ah, the colonial times, that was a fun day. I sighed.

"Fine, whatever." I turned back around.

"Finally," Ruri started, "while you were talking Old English with the Shadow King, I've been trying to answer questions about the famed 'Fitzwilliam Darcy'". She ended with a flourish, grinning at the end.

"Well, 'Shadow King', or whatever you call him, is now prohibiting us from lying."

She scoffed, "Aw, well that's too bad. That was the only fun thing about this job. You want to know what's even worse?"

"What?"

"The fact that we're on a contract." I grimaced. My "emotional debt", or my guilt, was fiscally estimated by Ootori, and apparently it's going to take me about a month to pay off. He made us sign a contract, I did read it, but The Raven really did know his business.

"Well, you know, there are loopholes to every scam." I commented.

"Oh really?" She looked at me disbelievingly.

"Yup. For example, describing Fitzwilliam Darcy as he appears in _Pride and Prejudice_ is not 'lying' technically," I poured the boy some more tea, "we're just withholding the fact that he's a fictional character from English literature." I smiled.

"Ha, nice." Ruri smiled as well.

"Hey, I have a question."

"Yeah?"

"What's a bento?"

**-Ruri POV-**

Alice isn't telling me something.

Let me explain, both Alice and I have some heavy trust issues. Even as best friends we _still_ keep our most guarded secrets to ourselves, but we know when we're keeping things from each other. So when Alice told me that Kyoya made us join the club, I knew there were other reasons. I don't mind, though.

We both understand that some types of information aren't meant to be shared. I mean, I hide stuff from Alice as well.

It's funny to hear her theories about Haruhi Fujioka. Why is he the only sensitive one? What's a nice guy like him doing here? What did Raven do to him? I can only listen to her as I laugh silently. Alice is such a dork. But then again, if Hikaru and Kaoru hadn't said anything about the other scholarship student who could tell them apart, I guess I wouldn't have known that Haruhi Fujioka's a girl, either.

We were almost through club today, I think it's our third day now, something like that, when the phone rang. It was Carrolline.

"Hey Al, this is yours." She took a look at it and twitched her eyes. She does that she's confused, but I understood. Carrolline never calls during club hours, it had to be close to midnight over in the US. She did once before, but she was having a teen "crisis".

"Sorry Ruri, d'you think you can handle them by yourself for a bit?"

I rolled my eyes, "I can live without you, you know." She smiled.

"Alright."

Alice went into the hall and I saw a flash of blond coming towards me. I steeled.

"**Ru-chan!"** Hunny threw himself at my back, I toppled a little, even by his small weight.

"Ack! You know Hu-er-senpai, I'm not Mori-senpai." I had to get used to this honorifics thing. I gathered my balance.

"Sorry, Ru-chan!" He hopped off. Hunny's a strange one, but he's one of my favorites. He's not too annoying, and he has a pretty cute act. He's interesting, though. He does certain things that prove his real age, despite his looks. It took Alice a lot of convincing with _that _one. For example,

"Where did Ali-chan go?" How he noticed this? I don't know. Wasn't he supposed to be paying attention to his own guests?

"She went to go take a call, from her sister."

"Ali-chan has a sister?" How did his eyes get so big?

"Yeah, we both do." I think Hunny was over-doing his cuteness act so that it made up for the dullness of our conversation. The guests still had to be entertained by _something_. Hunny knit his eyebrows together.

"Why does Ru-chan look distracted?" See? He's older than he looks. I was pretty concerned about Alice and her sister. Alice mentioned something about her family moving somewhere and Carrolline not liking it, but she doesn't like to talk about it. I smiled weakly,

"It's nothing, Senpai." Hunny looked concerned, and was about to say something.

"Don't probe, Mitsukuni." Ah, so that was the absence of light that suddenly towered over me, his _shadow_. That's pretty sad. I'm _that_ short.

"Hello, Mori-senpai." He nodded back.

I finally met someone who speaks less than I do, that's one thing off my bucket list. We limitedly conversed for a little bit. Maybe I did need Alice. At least I was only speaking to the guests through _her_ words, not mine.

After a whole lot of awkwardness, I saw Alice walk in around the corner, and her eyes had glints in them. Something was wrong.

"Alice, what happened?" I walked towards her. She was hesitating, looking around the room. "Alice, come on."

She paused, "My parents decided they're going to move." Oh crap.

"What about Carrolline?"

More pause. "She's really upset. And… she's threatening to run away," she closed her eyes, "she doesn't think anyone cares." Face-palm. "Oh god, this is all my fault."

Alice isn't telling me something.


	11. Nightmare

Hey guys! It's the **tenth chapter! **Whoo hoo! Therefore, I dedicate this chapter to all of my readers who have stuck with me since the sucky prologue! Thanks for giving this story a second chance. I should probably go and redo it, but I'm too lazy…

Disclaimer: I don't own anything that Bisco Hatori rightfully owns. That's stealing.

* * *

悪夢-Nightmare

_~Recap~_

_Alice isn't telling me something_

~Alice POV~

Ruri looks horrified. I should probably explain myself.

"Oh no, it's pretty OK now, I sort of… 'convinced' her to calm down a bit."

~Middle of Phone Conversation, 3 minutes ago~

"_What_?" I screamed, "you can't run away! It's dangerous out there! Carrolline…"

"Yeah, yeah, I know," she interrupted, "I'm not _really_ going to run away, I'm just gonna stay at a friends." What?

"Whose?"

"Well I can't tell you!" This was not Carrolline, Carrolline was a rational and level-headed person, what had gotten into her? Well… she _was_ like my mom. When something really bad happens, my mom and Carrolline both tend to overreact and do things without thinking. After a while, though, they usually get back to themselves. Even then, Carrolline wouldn't run away. Maybe she'd shut herself in her room, but not this.

"Okay, look Carrolline. Mom and dad said you're leaving in three weeks, right?"

"Yeah! How am I going to do that? What about my school and friends? I can't adjust that fast! They probably didn't even think this through. I'm sorry if this sounds selfish but… what about me?"

"Lline, I know they've thought this through. I know you know. Just… Lline, you've got three weeks. I know this is maddening as heck, and you're ticked off at Mom and Dad, but shouldn't you use this time to say goodbye and do all the things you've wanted to do?" I paused, there was no answer, but Carrolline was still listening.

"Lline, you can go to that store you've always wanted to go to, the antique store, right? Mom and Dad probably feel really bad, so they'll take you anywhere!" I felt bad about suggesting Lline to take advantage of Mom and Dad's guilt, but I had a plan. "You can say goodbye to your friends, and spend extra time with them. Maybe you could even say 'hi' to that one kid you've always been wanting to talk to, but could never have the courage to… not that I'm saying you're a pansy or anything!" I quickly recovered.

"Nice save, Al." I sighed a breath of relief. She was joking.

"You know what I mean. Anyways, what I'm trying to say is," I took a breath, "make these three weeks the best freakin' weeks of your life in America." I waited. "Okay?" Pause.

"Okay Al, I'll try." _Yes!_

I smiled, "Thanks, Lline. Hey, I'll send over some of that milk candy stuff from Japan for you, 'kay?"

I heard her laugh. "Bribe much?"

"I don't know, is it working?" I asked.

I heard her snicker. "Cliché much?"

"I'll take that as a 'yes'."

I probably sounded nonchalant, but I was scared as heck.

~Present~

Ruri asked, "So, she's fine."

"Well, sort of. If everything works, and she spends three weeks focusing on other things besides the fact that she's moving to a different country, it'll give her enough time to fully cool off and forget about moving away." Ruri nodded. "But…"

"But what…"

"The fact that she even threatened to move away… Carrolline would never do that, it's like she's not herself." I thought about it. "Maybe I'm just being paranoid again."

"Yeah, you do tend to do that."

"Thanks." I said sarcastically.

"No problem." We shared a smile, when I heard a sickeningly familiar voice pop up.

"Miss Alice and Miss Kato, I feel a need to inform you that your customers do not evaporate into thin air when problems arise." Ick, provocation. This guy was a master at it. Whatever.

"Thank you, Kyoya, for re-informing me about the basic mechanics of physics."

"Your welcome, Miss Alice." He handed me a yellow pudding-like substance to offer the customers. Ugh, I hate that, being like a servant to him, the Raven. You know, I heard Ravens were a symbol of the devil himself. Go figure. I was a servant of the devil. I walked away, muttering.

"_Stupid bird."_

"Excuse me?" I guess I needed work in being discrete. I turned and smiled, managing to balance the high-class snacks on one hand and give him a mocking thumbs up with the other.

"Um, this is some super curd!" (A/N: Look up lemon curd if confusion arises)

~Ruri POV~

So I guess we were safe for three weeks. No drama. Just like in the US. Well. Except for the Host Club and that was way too much already.

It was obvious that Tamaki really likes Haruhi, but he's too much of an idiot to admit it to himself. On the other side, Haruhi is too much of an idiot to know that practically half of the Host Club is in love with her. Don't even get me started on the twins.

But in this room, we're hosts before we're actual people with feelings. I guess that's the one thing I can count on as constant.

The rest of the day was as normal as it could've been, with the hosts' antics and the whole "running away" crap… until Kyoya decided that it'd be awesome to let the new girls know that they were required to go to some mandatory annual host club ball thing… the next day.

~_Flashback_~

After ten minutes of debate, Alice gave up.

"You're nuts." She sighed.

"I'll take that into account." He smirked.

"I hate nuts."

~_Present_~

Alice and I have collectively gone to two school dances in our lives. Alice went to the last dance of the ninth, and I went to the last of the eighth. Let's just say social events are not our specialty.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Sleepy time  
_"Thanks, but, um, I don't need you anymore."_

_Okay, okay…_

_Run, run, run._

Flash. _I hate this nightmare. _

"_Hey little lady~" Hey disgusting creature. "Why don't you come play with us." _

Flash.

_No. No. No. No. "Get away from me. _Stay the hell away!"

"_Alice~ Alice~" What? How'd he know my name? This is different. Sounds a lot like…_

"**Alice!"** …Ruri. I looked around, and then saw the flash of the clock. 3:12 AM. Lovely.

"Uh… what?" I muttered unintelligibly.

"How is it that the only time you curse is in your sleep? And it's the same curse. What's going on?"

"Um, nothing. Just a little scare. You know, monsters, death, and all that stuff. Same, same. Don't worry." Ruri stared at me.

"Hey, Alice," she started.

"Yeah?"

"I'm not an idiot." She huffed. "Does it have anything to do with Le…" Yes.

I cut in. "It's nothing." I said, more sharply. She backed off.

"Fine." She got off my bed. "I'm going back to sleep." I heard the creaking of her own bed. It was silent for a while, and then soft breathing arose. She was asleep.

"I'm sorry, but thanks for caring." I whispered. That's all I could admit to myself, for now at least.

~Ruri POV~

So I'm ignoring Alice. Well, not really, but we're silent. The only time I speak is when it's something relating to translation. Alice is scaring me, but when we got to the Host Club Room, I didn't know there were scarier things awaiting us.

"What's this say?" Alice muttered.

"The Host Club is closed for business."

"Weird. The guys didn't tell us anything about this. The door's unlocked…" She gave the door a try.

The rest of the club members were scattered across the room, and Haruhi was, ahem, attempting to dance with another girl. I think I saw her in club before… maybe not. The Hitachiins saw us first.

"Kato-san!" They both called once they ran over to us.

"Er, Ruri's good. Alice and I don't really care for honorifics."

"Ruri-san!" Uh…

"What are you and Alice going to wear?" Hikaru asked. I translated the question for Alice. Her face scrunched up.

"Um, clothes presumably?" Wow.

"He meant for the ball."

"Oh." She answered.

"**We brought some dresses over from America. We'll just grab whatever.**" The twins looked at us as if we'd committed murder, in response.

"This is a _ball_! We can't let you go in commoner's clothing and make!" Kaoru screamed.

"**Well too fricken' bad! We didn't want to go in the first place! And, Earth to twinsies, we **are** commoners, and who said anything about make-up?**" Alice hates make-up. She says it makes her face feel itchy.

Hikaru looked as though he was about to say something, but Kaoru stopped him. He gave an evil smile, and turned around, whispering something in Hikaru's ear.

"Okay, whatever." They stated. Repeat to Alice.

"**Seriously?"**

"Sure, we can't _make_ you do anything." Repeat.

"Uh huh, for some reason I don't believe them." Alice said sarcastically.

"Well, let's just hope for the best. There's really not much we can do." I said.

"True, hey can you tell them…"

"… **if we're not needed here, we're gonna get going. There is an act of studying that needs to be accomplished." **And we left.

~Alice POV~

Studying is something completely different. It's not as though my worksheets or textbook are custom-made to be in English. Although there is a handy Japanese-English glossary in the back of my World History textbook… but that's not the point. Ruri and I have to do our homework and studying together. It's a struggle, but it sort of works. Plus, and I hate to admit this, the Host Club really has helped me with vocabulary. I have recently learned that "Moe" is _not_ a super-popular guy at our school… just don't tell Kyoya I said that, 'kay?

Anyways, about the ball: We figured that an hour's worth of preparation would be more than enough. Seriously, Kyoya would probably just make us the servant girls anyways, and no dancing for me!

Except in the middle of our _intense_ study session, _three_ hours before the beginning of the ball, the doorbell rung.

"Weird." I told Ruri.

"Yeah, whatever, maybe it's just the mailman."

"Probably, I'll get it." I went to the door, and since we don't have the luxury of an eye-hole thing (and I couldn't ask who it was in English), I opened it without hesitation.

And there stood a pair of twins I didn't really want to see, with stuff in their hands I didn't really want to know about.

And yeah, I shut the door in their faces.

Muahaha.

* * *

Up next: The ball, and an explanation behind Alice's nightmare. Oh! And the gory battle between the Hitachiins and the K/ato/ims! Fun, fun!


	12. The Past

Warning: Major plot twister. Long chapter.

Subwarning: I kind of took a million clichés, mixed them around, and added a personal twist to them. May hurt your brain. This is **_very loosely _**based on different experiences.

Subsubwarning: Battle scene, and Ouran's favorite twins will be in "danger". If you can't stand it, turn now!

Subsubsubwarning: Battle scene, and the two main characters will be in actual danger _and_ "danger". If you can't stand it, turn now!

**BOLDENED** are Ruri's translations.

* * *

過去- The Past

_~Recap~_

_Basically Alice shuts the door in the twins' faces._

~Ruri POV~

I heard the door open, and then shut a millisecond later. Weird.

"Um, Alice?" Alice was walking back towards our study circle. "Who was that?" I asked, following a bunch of thumping noises that could only be idiots banging on the door.

"No one of great importance." Alice answered simply. Well thanks. I stood up to see who it was. "Ruri, don't open the door… Ruri, Ruri!" Too late, could've given me a straight answer earlier.

So I opened the door.

"Ah, shit!"

"Ruri-sa…" They didn't even get a chance to finish their stupid honorific before I slammed the door shut, or attempted to. At the last second, there was a resistance to the door.

"Oouchhh…" I looked down from the door handle, and there sat a crunched shoe. Alice came up behind me.

"I told you so..."

"Get your foot out of our door!" I demanded, in Japanese.

"If you let us in, it won't be there anymore." Ugh!

"Look, either you leave us alone, or you get your foot repeatedly severed by wood."

"Aw, you wouldn't do that to us." They bluffed. Right. I opened the door to slam it back down again, but the twins were fast. Somehow Hikaru managed to slip in before I rammed the door back, must've been his foot in the door. I had enough sense to lock it after I closed it, though. He spent some time trying to regain sense in his right foot. Alice spoke.

"Hey, which one's this one?"

"Hikaru."

"Darn it. We got stuck with the evil one."

"At least we got to impair his walking." Alice and I smiled.

"True, true."

Hikaru spoke, still shaking his foot off "And _we're _supposed to be the devils."

"Get out." Hikaru's eyes flashed, then calmed.

"Fine, I'll lead myself out, and at least retain some of my dignity." I kind of laughed to myself, he was limping on his way to "dignity". Alice, who had no idea what was happening, piped up.

"Um, Ruri, what's he doing?" Oh crap. Too late. Hikaru already opened the door.

"**Hurry Kaoru, get in here, bring all the stuff, too!" **He turned to look at my death glare, "Hey trust me," he started, "we're saving you." Hell no. Alice managed to react first, she figured out what was going on, she's a smart girl.

"_Noooo!"_ She yelled overdramatically as she slowly tried to reach the door.

"Um Alice, what are you doing?"

"Uh, I thought it would be dramatic." I glared at her. "What? I knew we weren't going to make it anyways. We might as well just fight… You saw what was in their hands, right?"

"Yeah."

"We should've known."

"Yeah."

Identical voices sprung up, "Ruri-san, Alice-san~" And we took our stances. "Look what we brought you!"

"We're not wearing those." They took a step forward.

"We're not letting you go to the ball looking so… plain and commoner-like." Kaoru announced.

"So you want us to not be ourselves?" The twins looked at each other,

"Yeah!"

"What the heck is going on here?" Alice panicked. Of course, she didn't understand.

"Let us dress you up! You'll be pretty!" Hikaru announced.

"Right, so when we don't let you guys dress us up, we're not…?"

"Smooth, Hikaru." Kaoru sighed sarcastically. "Okay, there's an easy way, and there's a hard way."

"Hey, you are _not _in any position to decide that sort of thing, you invaded _our_ house!" I pointed out. This was crap.

Hikaru continued anyways, "Haruhi doesn't even give us this much trouble," he mumbled, "either you let us give you guys a makeover, and everything will be painless. Or…"

"… We force it on you." Kaoru smirked. Oh god.

"We're not going down easy." I stated, putting up my guard.

"_What's going on!_" Alice complained. I turned.

"Get ready to fight."

"Ah, man!"

~Alice POV~

The battle kind of happened in a blur, Hikaru and Kaoru managed to drop all their stuff before trying to capture us. They both grabbed our left arms. Not too bad. I learned an evasive procedure, sneaking out of Kaoru's grasp, but Ruri managed to use the momentum Hikaru gained by running toward her, and flip him on his back. Who knew what two months of Aikido could do for you? I think Hikaru cursed then, I wasn't sure. Ruri pinned him down. Then Hikaru said something probably risqué, and I heard a noise that sounded like slapping. Fun. Not that I could pay much attention, I had my own battle.

It was obvious Kaoru didn't really want to fight a girl, he didn't throw any punches or kicks, it was all grabs. I think he was trying to bargain with me, but whatever, I couldn't understand. Well, I won't bore you with the details, but I basically gave a kick to the shin, a knife hand to his neck, and he was down as well. Who knew what two months of Taekwondo could do for you? Whoo-hoo, Go Team K!

But while they were on the ground, I saw a slight flash of Kaoru's hand in his pocket, and a slight smirk.

~Ruri POV~  
"Ruri, what's he doing?" That was like, the fourth time she had asked the question today. I looked over to Kaoru. Damn it.

"Kaoru, if you know what's good for you, you're going to take out whatever's in that pocket and surrender it to me."

"No way!" Came the sharp reply. I requested something to Alice, and soon, Kaoru fumbled out the device in his pocket.

Ah, I love the "death glare".

Alice grabbed it, "It's a pedometer?" Pedometer? Why would they want to count how many footsteps they'd walked? Didn't they just limo everywhere?

"Toss it here," She threw it over, "no, it's a pager… crap!" I turned to the twins, "Who were you paging?"

Hikaru smiled, "Not telling~"

Then I heard a knock.

~Alice POV~

Weird. Maybe _that's_ the mailman. We weren't really in a position to open the door though… uh.

"Come in!" I yelled, we had to say something similar to that in order to greet the guests at the Host Club, I hope it would suffice. Ruri glared at me.

"What are you doing?" She practically yelled. The door started opening, and uncovered Hunny and Mori. Wait a second… the pager. Oh, come on! Ruri face-palmed.

"Exactly how many limos are outside our apartment right now?"

~Ruri POV~

Long story short, we surrendered. Alice was surprised I would do so, but she didn't know that Hunny and Mori also did martial arts, and they had _way _more than two months of experience. Well, the twins were "happy". We decided not to give them the satisfaction of victory by remaining silent and apathetic throughout the torture session. In the end, both sides were irked.

Alice's dress was blue and luxurious. My dress was green and luxurious, that's all we really noticed through our silent frustration. When they pulled out the makeup kit, though, Alice totally broke.

~_Flashback~_

"_No! There's no way in heck I'm letting these idiots put chalk on my face!" Alice stuck her hands out in rejection._

"_What's she saying?" Hikaru asked Kaoru._

"I don't know." Kaoru replied. "I think she's resisting. Mori-senpai, restrain Alice-san please… just don't make eye contact." Mori grunted. As always.

~Present~

"Ru-chan, Ali-chan, you look so prettyyy." Hunny "complimented" us with the drawn-out adjective, "Neh, Takashi?" Mori grunted as Hunny's response.

We were not happy, it was probably written all over our faces.

"**Get out!" **Alice spoke, translated. Alice was so unhappy, she was clinically disturbed. Ouch.

"No way, we have to escort you to the ball!"

"**We live a block from school, we can walk by ourselves… And how the fricken' heck did you get our address!"** Then she muttered something like, "Stupid bird". I didn't get it though. I rolled my eyes.

"Look, we'll make a compromise." I repeated every sentence for Alice, in English. "Alice and I are walking, and Mori and Hunny's limo can follow us or whatever. This is ridiculous, though."

"Fine." The twins stated.

"Takashi and I will protect you~" Hunny declared. Alice was bewildered by the small blonde, but she didn't say anything.

We walked, it was weird being followed by a limo, but whatever. I'd rather be fending for myself than ride one stupid block to a ball I didn't even want to go to. Alice and I came across the alleyway that was a shortcut to the school; it wasn't wide enough for the limo, so it had to go around. Halfway across, we heard voices. I'm really starting to hate this alleyway.

"Hey pretty girls, why are you all dressed up?" Darkness sort of shrouded their faces, but I could tell there were three of them. Why is there always a lack of lighting here? Alice was hyperventilating in the background.

"Not again. This is a nightmare right? Another one of my dreams?" What was she talking about? She doesn't freak out usually…

"Yeah, why are you dressed up?" The taller imbecile asked, "And in an alleyway?"

"It's not what you think, leave us alone." I started putting my guard up, they were coming closer.

"Oh you want to fight? Relax, we just want to… get to know you." Disgusting. Alice didn't sound that great either. She couldn't understand them, but it seemed like she knew what was happening anyways.

"Alice, put your guard up." Why did I even have to remind her?

"Oh god, this isn't a dream." Alice whimpered.

~Alice POV~

Long story short, Mori and Hunny beat the life out of the drunken rapists before they even had a chance to touch us. They insisted on us riding in the limo, and we didn't turn them down.

"Alice, what the hell happened back there?" Ruri demanded. I turned away, I couldn't talk about it here. "Alice, I'm so sick of this! Let me help you out!"

"I'm sorry." I really was.

~Ruri POV~

Fine. Whatever. We got to the ballroom. It was rich. The people, the food, the building, the manners, everything was. The hosts greeted all the fan girls, and some boys, and announced some stupid contest about getting a kiss. How idiotic. Alice was distant. So was I. We danced around for a bit, with the few guy-guests that got the guts to come, but it wasn't that fun. I admit, I did keep an eye out for Alice, but I was worried about her above all. I was spun-off, and handed to another person. I didn't pay attention, until I noticed the tall figure. Of course.

"What's wrong?" Mori asked as we awkwardly moved about.

"Nothing, don't worry." I fake-smiled.

"Your face says something." Well, Mori couldn't tell anyone else, right? He barely talked. I took a breath.

"Alice is acting funny."

"Rapists?"

"Maybe, but she's stronger than that." I saw Alice walking off, into the balcony. Hmm.

"I have to go."

"I'll come."

"It's going to be morally testing..." Mori kind of looked at me funny. "Eavesdropping." He shrugged. Fine, it's his funeral if Alice catches him.

~Alice POV~

I hate ballroom dancing, and snobby guys. So this dance was very fun. The balcony was beautiful though, so I decided to make my escape there. A pool chair was there, looking out of place. I smiled and leaned back on it, looking not-really-graceful.

"I guess it's just you and me, pool chair." Yeah, I felt ridiculous, but no one could hear me. "We both don't belong here." The stars looked really pretty.

"You know, it was a night just like this. It was a dance, the last school dance of my ninth grade year, and I only went to support a friend." I sighed, "Her name was Leah, and she was kind of suicidal. I have this undeniable want of being the Hero, I guess. Or I always seem to attract the wrong kind of people. Anyways, I was basically there for her every time she fell into depression. It was hard, seeing her like that. You know? Of course you don't, you're a pool chair."

~Ruri POV~

What the hell?

~Alice POV~

"Well, she was doing well, after a year. She finally got a boyfriend, one that wasn't abusive, and she seemed happy for once. I was kind of feeling like a third wheel, but whatever. That last dance, Leah went with her boyfriend and I carpooled with them. I went single … not that I minded, I didn't and don't want to be in a relationship or anything. But after awhile at the dance, I really didn't have anyone to talk to. So I went to Leah and her boyfriend and made small talk. Our relationship wasn't the same, though. Leah pulled me aside, and, well she basically told me she didn't need me anymore." Pause.

"I mean, don't get me wrong, pool chair, it was true. I was just sticking way to hard on her. So I left." I said all of this matter-of-factly. I accepted this a long time ago. No tears. "By myself. I walked home, it wasn't too far, but it was late. Some creepers came up to me. I managed to outrun them, but it was scary as heck. I wasn't sure if I was going to live or be innocent anymore." Where was I going with this?

"I wish Ruri wasn't mad at me, I wish I could tell her. All she knows is that I went to a dance with Leah, and had to end it early… and that I wasn't myself afterwards. Only my parents know. But what if she tells me she won't need me anymore? She's so apathetic, she needs to find her voice and believe in herself. I think she's finally getting it. I guess that's why I don't tell anyone anything anymore; I'd get hurt if they turned their back. Ha, I actually used to be a really talkative child, can you believe it? I've stored up all my words and used it up here. Now there's nothing else to say."

"Well, that was a nice, but strange, therapy session, pool chair. Thanks. Mori can come out now. You're way too tall to be hiding behind that plant."

~Ruri POV~

Mori may not have understood everything she said, but he knew he was found out. I'd never thought I'd say this, but God bless shortness.

* * *

I know, it looks like a jumble of some-what humorous drama, but trust me, it will all come together :D

Up next: Alice and Mori "converse" in ways. The end of the ball. Awkwardness between Ruri and Alice.


	13. Migraine

I apologize times three. I'm not going to write in all caps or go on a long tangent about why I didn't update, because I'm pretty sure you couldn't care less. Ha. So, I'll shorten it: I was on vacation and I'm working on another story. So there's a plus! Yay!

Now for something some-what important: I usually never ask you guys to review (which by the way, I love you, past reviewers, thank you), since I write for the pure want of writing, but today I am. Request continued below…

But for now, here's the story!

* * *

片頭痛-Migraine

_~Recap~_

Ruri and Mori eavesdrop on Alice, who was using up all of her words on a pool chair. Mori gets found out. Ruri doesn't.

~Alice POV~

"Can I ask you something?" Silence. "Am I going to end up being eavesdropped by every single one of you guys? First it was Ootori…" For someone who's supposed to be a kendo master, you'd think that Mori had the capacity to be a little more secretive in eavesdropping. Not. I was still lying on the pool chair. Mori was standing a little to the right. I was looking at the sky, and from what my peripheral vision saw, Mori was too. "But you aren't the kind of person to just slip in and listen… You weren't hired or something, were you?"

~Ruri POV~

Uh. I better leave.

~Alice POV~

"Not that it matters." I realized out loud, "You didn't understand a word I was saying." I laughed. "I basically poured out my whole life story to you and you didn't freakin' understand anything. From Leah, to the party, to the stalking, and Ruri, and, uh… let's see…"

"Talking."

Oh, right! "Yeah! And the talki…" Wait a second.

…

…

I immediately stood up. "What did you say?"

The deep voice spoke again, "Talking".

… **What**? Okay, Alice, take a deep breath. In. Out. Good. Now speak slowly.

I started, "You can speak English?" I made eye contact. Neither of us dared to break from it.

"Yes." Twitch. Twitch.

"And you haven't told me this before because…?" I was struggling to keep calm.

"You never asked." Silence. I was about to leash out a ball of fury. It would be a little something like this: _I kind of want to punch your face._ Which is funny, because I realized I never _was_ this violent until I moved to Japan. I wonder why?But then I realized… he was right. Mori never spoke out of his own accord, and I never directed any conversation towards him because I assumed he didn't speak English. Wow. Paradox-y.

And there was something else.

"How much of it did you hear? Don't lie to me."

"Everything."

"How much of it did you understand?'

"…Everything."

There was a moment of tenseness between us. I turned to look out the balcony.

"Well… I guess it's okay. You don't talk much anyways. My personal affairs aren't that interesting. No one would really ask about it." I turned to Mori, who looked a little surprised. "But still, I need you to not tell anyone. Not even your cousin. I know you're not the type of person to just listen into other people's conversations unless there's something else. I don't need more people carrying my over-dramatic past. It's not even a 'past', it's more like a, uh, life-changing occurrence…? You know what? Never mind. I'm going home." And I started walking out. Then I felt a hand on my shoulder.

"I'll walk you." I turned around.

"Don't you have an eighteen year-old to look after?" What was he doing? I could walk by myself. Eh, he was probably just worried about earlier. But then again, I kind of was too. I saw a pass of indecision come over his face. I sighed, "Do whatever you want." I started heading back to my house again, and after a moment of hesitation, I heard slightly shuffling footsteps follow.

Hold up. The walk home with Takashi Morinozuka was not "sweet", "cute", and definitely not "romantic". It was _awkward_. What was usually normal silence was painful this time, because there were a whole fricken' lot of things to talk about for two relatively private people. Plus, I didn't really want him following me, and Mori probably wanted to be with Hunny anyways. Got it? Good.

~~At the doorway~~

I had a very deep epiphany about Mori's character and history. I then explained it to him in very eloquent detail, and he was forever amazed by my all-knowingness.

Ha, yeah right. Here's what really happened.

"Hey thanks, bye!" Slam. Phew. Awkward, awkward, awkward.

~Ruri POV~

I'm such a jerk. I hope Mori-senpai's not dead. Alice is so stupid! What the hell, Leah?

Those thoughts kind of ran a constant cycle through my head as I snuck my way out of the balcony. I was so consumed by them, I didn't notice Haruhi coming towards me.

"Are you alright, Ruri-san?" I snapped out of Ruri-land in a second.

"Um, yeah. I'm fine."

"Are you sure, Rur…"

"Just stick with Ruri. Those damn honorifics make me sound like an old person." They did. She might as well have called me "Miss Ruri". Ew.

"Of course, Ruri." I could tell Haruhi was having trouble twisting the word in her mouth. Ah well. "You look a little pale, are you sure I can't get you anything? Or help you with anything?" I eyed her suspiciously.

"I'm not a customer, Haruhi. You can stop with the hosting act. I can do things by myself." I sound like a jerk. "But thanks for offering."

S/he sighed. "I'm sorry, it's just sometimes I have a hard time turning off the 'host switch' of my actions. I understand, though. I hate it when Tamaki-senpai and the twins try to act like hosts around me. You just want to be treated like a human being sometimes, you know? Not a customer?"

Wow. She couldn't get anymore naïve, could she? But her understanding of other things sort of makes up for it, I guess. If Haruhi was actually a guy, I know a lot of friends that would easily fall for him/er. I'm also counting my guy friends. "Exactly. It looks like you're the only one who gets it."

"Yeah. But really, as a friend, or at least a colleague, I suggest you watch out for yourself…" She suddenly halted, searching around me. "Where's Alice-san? Isn't she always with you?" Ooh.

"Um, yeah. Uh… she went to get some fresh air." Haruhi scrunched her eyes.

"I don't think so…" She walked around a bit to survey the open balcony area from the lower level of the room, "the balcony looks clear to me…"

"_Haru-chan, Ru-chan_!" A familiar tuft of blond hair rushed towards our legs. He hugged Haruhi's leg as his eyes grew three times the normal size whilst filling with tears. "Have you seen Takashi?" Oh shit.

"Eh? Mori-senpai's missing as well?" Haruhi questioned.

What the hell did Alice do with Mori-senpai? She couldn't have done too much, right? The guy's supposed to be some international kendo champion or something. But then again… Alice has the capacity to achieve some scary things when she has the drive to.

"Wow! Look at the time! I… uh… need to feed my pet platypus!" I ran. Yeah, I know, smooth, but I couldn't think of anything else. Now… If I were to torture an eavesdropper… where would I keep him? No, scratch that. If I were a pissed-off Alice, where would I go to punch things? Ah. I know.

A smooth voice. "I happen to know neither of you own a pet. Much less a platypus." Oh my bejeezus. Couldn't this guy ever give it a rest?

"Are you going to let me through without a fight?" Somehow, a rather strong glare reflected off Ootori-san's glasses. Hey look! He has no pupils.

"Do whatever you need to, Kato-san." I was slightly surprised, but I decided it was nothing. I guess that guy _could_ give it a rest every now and then.

Run. Run. Run… Come on legs, can't you go any faster? I ran past the classrooms, out of Ouran, _around _the creepy building (yeah, not going through the alley, I'm not that much of an idiot)… Whoa, wait.

"Mori-senpai?" By this point, the sky was pitch black. The flimsy streetlights and the white moon provided the only lighting.

Mori-senpai had been walking with his hands in his pockets, looking down. The only way I recognized him was by his height. He looked up. I ran toward him and inspected his body for any common injuries. He wasn't limping… no broken or sprained legs or ankles. His face was perfectly clear and intact, so no jaw dislocations or broken noses. He could put his hands in his pockets… so his arms were fine. His clothes didn't have splotches or anything, so there was no external bleeding. Phew. I was so concerned about having blood on my hands, I didn't realize my actions were kind of creepy.

"Uh, sorry. I was just checking for injury." Mori-senpai looked confused. "Ah, never mind. I'm just insane, don't pay attention to me. Um… **anyways**… what happened with you and Alice?" He shrugged.

"She wanted to go home. I walked her." I let go of the breath I was holding.

"That's it? No death threats or anything?" He, again, looked confused. "Uh, never mind…AHH!" There was so much going on in my head, my mind felt like it was going to explode into millions of pieces… and then be burnt to ashes. Poor Mori-senpai, he was _really_ confused now, and most likely _really_ frightened of the female kind.

"Ah…" He was trying to express concern.

"Sorry, sorry. Just. A lot on my mind. Um. Can. You not tell Alice I listened to… everything." It came out in spurts. Ah, I know what this is. A migraine. Hooray. Something I really need. I had enough sense to look at Mori-senpai's face for a reaction, though. He looked a little disbelieving. "Unless you already. Told her. Ah." He shook his head. He looked worried. "I'm… er. Fine. Just go back. Tell everyone we… uh, have Commoner's Disease." They'd believe that. "Thanks. I'm going home."

Somehow I managed to make it to the doorway. How? I don't know, because if a hundred hammers pounded into my brain in any other circumstance, I'd die. I fumbled with the lock and stumbled into the shared home. Dropping everything, I wandered to the bathroom and opened the med cabinet. Ibuprofen… come on… _Why the hell is it not here_! Damn it! Another wave of pain came over me. I'd just sleep it off. I couldn't take it anymore.

So in my dress and all, I flopped onto the bed and turned to the nightstand to turn off the lamp. And then I saw the ibuprofen. And a sleeping Alice.

Don't worry. The bottle was still pretty full. This story is not categorized under "drama". I guess both of us just had a rough night, Alice usually hates taking medicine. I dry-swallowed two pills.

I had one thought before passing out.

There is no way in hell I am going to any more balls.

* * *

Haha, I broke a couple of fourth walls here. I feel bad for Mori, having to keep secrets from everyone, and he's **always** out of the loop and at the wrong place at the wrong time and dealing with strange girls.

Next up: You thought this was awkward?

Continuation from note above: So like I said, I'm working on another story. If you want to see an outline, look at my profile, it's the Untitled story about cooking. Anyways, there's an OC. I don't want to write a common story.

So, I'd like to see how I'm doing with this one, so I can improve my upcoming plot:

1. I know this started dully, what made you guys continue reading?

2. Are my characters too common? What do you like/hate about them? I hate writing blandly.

3. Did your opinion of the story or the characters change since the beginning of the story and now?

4. Any other improvements/comments.

NOTE: You don't have to, it'd just be really helpful if you addressed even one of these points. There's no "Update Ultimatum" if you guys don't decide to review :D

Thanks, until next time!


	14. Shopping

Hey guys! Thanks for your reviews! I'll detail my responses below, but before the story, here's some news!

~I got off my lazy butt and redid the prologue! It's unboring-ed!

~My new story about the catering business (look at my profile for more information), tentatively titled, "Fond of Fondant" is scheduled to release the day I finish "Not in America Anymore", which may be anywhere around the end of August to the end of September, depending on how busy school will be. I do know there are only a couple of more chapters in the story, from five to ten. Haha. So that's why updates are slower, I'm now working on two things at once! **Ah**!

Alright, here you go.

* * *

ショッピング-Shopping

~Ruri POV~

_Hey, going shopping._

_-Alice, 8:30 _

Hhhuh… Saturday. It was 9:35. I flopped back on the bed. Alice hates shopping, at least for clothes. Apparently it's "boring". Maybe it's for groceries… she can't cook. Well, we _are_ running low on... cereal. Perhaps for Christmas? Maybe she just didn't want to see me. She probably thinks I'm still mad at her. Well, she _did_ kind of bail out on me. Well, she _did _kind of have to deal with a lot.

My mind kinda just bantered on like this for a while as I got up again. We'd barely been in Japan for ten days, and look at all the crap we got ourselves in.

Wait a second. How's Alice going to go shopping without me? Her translator?

Well, I hope she knows what she's doing.

~~2 Hours Later~~

… Okay, she's lost.

I dialed the shared cell phone to call…

"Hello?"

"Hey, senpai."

"I don't imagine you're calling for a regular 'hello', Ruri."

"Nope, Alice is missing, probably lost." I usually wouldn't call for help, either, but from our track record of getting into trouble, I figured this was the best way. There was a pause.

"You've managed to lose a human being?"

"Yup."

"…Could you elaborate? Or is this one of your American jokes? I gave you and Alice a reprieve for leaving early last night, Miss Ruri, I'm not about to…"

I rolled my eyes, "Look, Kyoya-senpai, two hours ago, I woke up and found a note on her bed. It said she left to go shopping and hour before I read the note."

"…I don't see a problem." He sounded kind of annoyed, like I should have had a better reason to call him.

"When it comes to shopping, Alice has the patience of a senior citizen, which means…"

He caught on, "She should have returned two hours ago."

"Exactly." I heard sighing on the other end.

"Are you sure she wouldn't go anywhere else? With yesterday's occurrence?"

"Alice doesn't lie like that."

"… I'll see what I can do."

"Thanks." I heard a little bit of mumbling that sounded suspiciously like, _"more trouble than it's worth"_ before hanging up.

Within one hour, Kyoya got some of his secret police (who has those anyways?) and all of the host club members out and about, searching for Alice. What a dork. A sad, sad, dork.

~Alice POV~  
Don't get me wrong, I got where I needed to go, and got what I needed, perfectly fine… it was _getting back home_ that was the problem. And, being the idiot that I was, I kept looking around, getting _even lost-er_. Yup, I was so lost, I had to make up a new word for the extent of how lost I was. I was still in civilization, though, in some street somewhere. I eyed a park, it had a simple play structure, sand box, benches, and tons of blades of grass. Unleashing my inner child, I ran for the swings. I loved my inner child. I could get back to stressing about getting home later. For right now… _woosh. _I closed my eyes, just enjoying the feeling of wind in my face.

_Woosh._

_Woosh._

_Woo- **clangclangclang. **_My eyes shot open as I tried to regain balance. There was something dragging the left chain, and the right side of the swing wanted to keep going. I was about to look and see, when the right chain pulled back as well. If I wasn't holding on tight enough, I would have flown out of the seat. Instead, I jumped out some-what gracefully. I turned around, dusting off my pants, "What the heck is your problem?"

"**Is she**asjvktvwperoc **say** pcweorgcmlsfscslm csgfcmj,_ **Kaoru**_." Said One of them, or at least that's what I heard.

"**I don't know** asc werg adjfmpqowe j. **knights in shining** soinsfrchsmdvamdls, **_Hikaru_**." Said the other, which I guess now is Kaoru. Guess where I learned the word "knights" from? Hint: Same place I learned "prince" and "princess".

Ah man. For all the people that could've found me, it had to be these guys?

I bit my lip, trying to see how I could get my message across. "Um, **home."** I knew what that word was. The twins looked at each other.

Kaoru started in broken English. "You want… go home?"

"Hai." I knew that one too. I wasn't a complete idiot at this. I was learning.

Hikaru smirked, "Hikaru? Or Kao…"

I knew what he wanted. If I guessed correctly, they'd lead me home, if I didn't, they still would, but at a price. Too bad they didn't know they'd hinted at the answers already. I pointed to Hikaru, "Hikaru", then Kaoru, "Kaoru". Before I gave them a chance to respond, I repeated, again, "**home**". They exchanged glances, and a couple of words, before reluctantly guiding me. Kaoru took out a phone.

"Hai, Kyoya-senpai…" That's when it hit me. A bus…load of information just became prevalent*. Kyoya sent out a search party. Why would Kaoru have reported it to Kyoya otherwise? After a bit of talking, he threw the phone in my face. I took it.

"Where have you been, Alice?" His tone was condescending.

"Did you send a search party after me?"

"Yes. It was necessary for a foreign commoner like you."

"Same answer." I shot back.

"… What?"

"Sorry, that didn't quite work out the way I wanted it to."

There was hesitation. "Let me give you some advice," he sighed, "just go home, Alice."

"Oh thanks for the advice, Kyoya. You know, I was about to go on a worldly expedition to find the Fountain of Youth, but that sounds like a better idea." I ended sarcastically. I heard silence, then the click of an ended call. How rude.

Hikaru grabbed the cell from me immediately, and dialed another number.

_Ring._

_Ring._

_Click. _

"**Haruhi! Kaoru and I **aiqeruodfsjlz **Alice**. **Where are you?" **Funny how much Japanese I picked up at school. I heard some mumbling. Then Hikaru responded,

"**asoidufvn with Ruri?" **Ruri was on the other end? I grabbed the phone, not really caring for my life. She must be furious.

"**Hello**?" Asked a confused Haruhi in Japanese. I mustered up some words.

"**I am Alice. Talk with Ruri."** Man, that probably sounded stupid. Thank god Haruhi knew what I meant, and wasn't evil.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Ruri."

"Alice, where the heck have you been?"

"Shopping. Like it said on the note." The twins were glaring at me, I gave them the "death stare", I had no time for this.

"For what?"

"For spaceships, Ruri. Does it really matter?" This conversation was quite humorous.

"Well, er, I'm glad you're alright." And now it was awkward.

"Are you at home?" The twins were now talking with each other, probably planning some sort of conspiracy against my existence. Hooray.

"Nah, I'm with Haruhi. We went to go look for you in pairs, and since she was the only girl, I went with… _shit_!" Ruri went on a streak of cursing.

Life is weird. I can imagine, "No, it's not weird enough for Mori to speak English, I think we'll make one of the only sensible people in Alice's Club a cross-dresser, that's actually a girl too! Let's see what she does with that!" But, I think I kind of already knew. I pieced the clues together, I just couldn't see the whole picture right.

"Oh, so _that's_ it, I can't believe I didn't see it earlier…" There was a pause.

"Look, Alice, I've got to go. I'll see you at home." She sounded kind of rushed. I guess it was supposed to be a secret. I wonder what Kyoya will do.

We finally approached the apartment. I rushed over there with my keys before the twins could do anything, said a rushed "thanks", and retreated into the safety of my room. Who knew how the twins would make me pay back for the stuff I did to them if I couldn't get in my house unbothered. Shudder.

~Ruri POV~

Damn it.

* * *

A/N: *Did you get that?

Next up: Let's see... A plot twister. Major. Hooray! Things will start to come together!

SO: Thanks so much, reviewers, your reviews (I know, no duh) are helping shape my characters and my plot line for my next story. They also encouraged me to redo the prologue, so I give you guys a virtual high-five!

**lilwhit:** Thanks for reviewing every single update. I could never have the patience to do so... anyways...I'm glad you think Ruri balances Alice. I wanted strong characters, so I gave each of them a different type of strength. Ruri has sort of a rawer strength, while Alice's is a bit more refined and cautious, I'm glad you didn't get "I'm going to kill you" or "I'm not going to cry" over-load.

I'm sorry if you didn't understand what I just said. Clarity is a big problem for me.

I debated for a while whether Mori was going to be able to speak English, but I decided Alice needs another friend than Ruri. Haha. We'll see what happens with the situation...

**xXEmiShaeXx:** Thanks for being there since Chapter Numero Uno! I'm sorry for this being my first reply. I'm also glad you think my story's funny, thank goodness my weird humor is at least some-what reachable to my audience. I also hope your cat's okay O.O It also gives me great relief that my characters aren't Mary-Sues. I tried to base them off of real people in my life, people who aren't so observant, aren't so smart, and aren't so eloquent explaining epiphany's about another person's character, or coming up with comebacks. Haha.

Unfortunately you'll have to wait a little longer for my next story to post. I'm actually prepping and laying out schematics for this one. *Surprise* *Surprise* Hopefully it will be worth the wait.


	15. Phone Call

I have updated news on "Fond of Fondant" posted on my profile. If you're keeping up with it, go check it out!

Also, if you've noticed, I've done some cleaning up of the story. I never really wanted to keep the bonus chapters up permanently, but if you really want a copy, PM me to discuss DocX.

There are only a couple more chapters left in NIAA. I'll miss it, but it's time to get into some more serious writing, this was fun.

A plot-twister, enjoy!

* * *

通話-Phone Call

I have a smile on my face, a ticket in my hand, and a wall guarding my heart. I have only one question, how the heck did I get here?

Kyoya called earlier, I remember that. He told me that Ruri was too far away and it was too late, so she would sleep over at Haruhi's. I guess he knew Ruri accidentally let it slip that a certain someone wasn't a guy.

I remember smiling. A month ago, she never would have done this. She would've walked home if she had to. She was finally starting to trust others. Something inside me stirred then, but I ignored it, it was probably nothing. Then I realized it's never "nothing", because this is fan-fiction.

Then I got another call.

I'm sorry, Ruri.

-Ruri POV-

Today I woke up at two in the morning at the fault of a womanly man. I was scared shitless, if you can imagine. I yelled.

"Dude, get away from me!" Haruhi came running from her room.

"Dad, you're home…" Dad? I did notice Haruhi's parents weren't in, but who comes from work at two in the morning?

"Oh, Haruhi! I'm so glad you've found yourself some _girl _friends for once! Maybe she'll teach you how to be more feminine." Yeah, I doubted that.

"Dad, you're scaring her." Haruhi stated, unfazed and tired.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I'll just leave you two to sleep then…" Something told me he wasn't going to leave it at that, but I was just too tired to care.

I fell back asleep.

And woke up six hours later, from the sounds and smells of cooking. I folded all the blankets, and walked over to their kitchen. I liked this house. It was cozy.

"You wake up at eight to make breakfast?"

Haruhi answered nonchalantly, "My dad isn't…the best cook, and I'm usually home by myself, so I've learned to work for myself, and I'm an early-riser so I don't mind."

"Hmm…"

She finished cooking about twenty minutes later, and I helped set the table for three.

"Dad!" She called, "Food is ready!" The man came out wigless and makeup-less. I was starting to wonder whether I had dreamed the whole thing. We sat around the table, silently eating.

"So, what's your name? I'm sorry to have woken you up earlier, by the way." Haruhi's dad started. So I _wasn't_ dreaming after all.

"Kato Ruri, and it's fine." I answered simply.

"Call me Ranka," He started, "your Japanese has a bit of an accent. Are you from around here?"

"No, I'm actually a transfer student from America."

"Oh, I see! How exciting…" It looked like he was about to bombard me with questions when…

"Dad, please don't bombard Ruri with questions." Haruhi almost read my mind.

"'Ruri'? Why, you two are already on such familiar terms!" Haruhi looked unsure, so I interjected.

"No, actually. I asked her not to use honorifics since I'm not used to them, being from America and all." Oh shoot, the man's mouth was opening with a million questions again.

"Dad…" Haruhi warned. Ranka-san looked crestfallen and just finished eating his eggs. After a couple of minutes, I was ready to leave.

"Thank you for having me here." I figured it would be nice to be polite.

"No problem," Haruhi brushed the thank-you off, "I hope you and Alice are okay." I didn't say anything, but before I realized I _should've_, I was already outside the door with some bus money in my hands. Whatever.

It was silent when I got home.

"Alice? Alice?" She wasn't in the living room, and I soon found out, she wasn't in the bedroom either, but there was a note on my bed, along with a ticket.

_Hey Ruri,_

_Sorry to leave like this, I know, I know, I'm a dork. _

_Some stuff came up. I had to leave. Eh, you won't even notice I'm gone.  
_

_I've realized you're growing a lot now, by yourself. You trust more people, and I think you have the confidence, now, to stand up for yourself. I mean, look at the twins, they won't even speak to you, hehe. You don't need me anymore to help you out._

_I've attached two tickets to the Cherry Blossom Festival... January 17, well, you've always said you wanted to go, right? Well now you can. That was what I was shopping for yesterday, by the way. I thought I was going to go with you, but…_

_Anyways, I think you should go with Mori, I think he's got some special eyes for you… haha. Stop blushing! You guys are similar enough… or maybe Haruhi, since she _is _the only girl around._

_Sorry if this good-bye note is cheesy, I tried to make in ham-y instead. :D Did you get that?_

_Um. Bye?_

_-Alice_

If the issue wasn't so pressing, I would've laughed, but I'm not.

Alice was such an idiot if she thought I was her friend just because I needed something from her, but that's when it hit me.

She did this to avoid another Leah, but that wasn't enough.

There had to be something else. What was the "stuff that came up"? I had to call Kyoya-senpai. He was supposed to know everything.

But where was the phone?

I remember the last time I had it, it was in my backpack, but it wasn't there. I searched for a bit, and finally saw that shine of black.

It was on Alice's bed. Did she call someone?

I scrolled through the "recent calls" list.

_12:42 A.M_

_Incoming call from: Jae-young Kim. _

That was Alice's mom…

Why was she calling at 12:42 in the morning?

My thumb hovered over "redial", and with a deep breath, I pressed it.

Ring. Ring.

Ri-click.

"Hello?" Alice's mom answered. She didn't seem tired, but it was like, one in the morning in America.

"Hi Mrs. Kim. This is Ruri."

"Ruri, oh my goodness!" She seemed anxious. "Has there been any news?" News?

"Sorry?"

"News! About your sister? Or Carrolline?" What?

"I don't understand…"

"You mean Alice didn't tell you?"

"Tell me what?"

"Oh my…" Mrs. Kim's voice drifted.

"Mrs. Kim?"

"Well, Ruri, I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, but Carrolline's… missing." She sort of choked up.

"Wa-wait, what about my sister?"

"She ran away as well." I was speechless as she told me she was in the airport, going through security, when Carrolline disappeared. Roni hadn't been seen since yesterday. Something told me the two were somehow connected.

My brain numbed. I was feeling nothing. There was no way it could handle this much. I dialed someone else.

Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring.

Ring. Ring. _This person is not available…_ Bullshit. Redial.

Ring. Ring. Ri-click.

Kyoya-senpai was vehement, "Ruri, do you have any idea what time I fell asleep?"

"No, I don't stalk you. It seems to be a one-sided thing. Now shut up, this is an emergency."

"… What is it this time?"

* * *

Have you noticed the similar patterns between Ruri's opening view of the world and how much of the story is in her voice, yet?

Up next: Ruri does some detective work. The search for three girls is _on!_


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